Mark Mazower: Eric Hobsbawm: the history man - 'To anyone who loves history Eric Hobsbawm's death is very sad news'

To be sure, some bits work better than others. Age of Empire remains a tour de force; no other Europeanist was at home writing about South America one minute and China the next. Age of Extremes – the volume on the 20th century suffers by comparison; what it really tells is the story that emerges more openly in his autobiography, and his political sympathies get in the way. In retrospect that is scarcely surprising and hardly worth the fuss that was made at the time.

Mein Blog befasst sich in einem umfassenden Sinn mit dem Verhältnis von Wissen, Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft. Ein besonderes Augenmerk richte ich dabei auf die Aktivitäten des Medien- und Dienstleistungskonzern Bertelsmann und der Bertelsmann Stiftung.