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June 2, 2003

A dense but fascinating read about the "dual revolutions" - the political revolution that began in France with the overthrow of the last vestiges of feudalism and the industrial revolution driven by England's drive to capitalist imperialism.

Written in a High Oxonian blither for a graduate audience, the book is hard going.  Be prepared to decipher cryptic references such as "the events of 1832 in China."   To those lacking the benefits of a classical education, this can require a lot of rummaging around in the lumber room of memory.

But the sweep and penetrating analysis makes this book rewarding.  Here are two examples:

• Hobsbawm points out that the industrial revolution was extremely localized.  The growth of railroads were limited to very small regions (mostly in England), for example.  But the economic dislocations to the agricultural economy of "land reform" and the loss of common land (by enclosure in England and through dispossession of eclisiastical lands on the Continent) started the social move from a rural peasantry to urban proletariat necessary to create a labor market.  This, in turn, provided the needed industrial workforce.
• The role of "liberalization" in moderating "radical" change resulted in vast immiseration of the lower classes -- rather than moderating the social impact, it made things vastly worse for the bottom rung of society.

The general thesis of the book is the political revolutions in Europe and the commercial/industrial revolution in England created a complex cycle of mutal feedback.  In England, the establishment of the "business cycle" of boom and bust slowly replaced the agricultural cycle of plenty and famine -- and this evolving cycle established the necessary and sufficient conditions for the growth of capitalism.

Likewise, on the Continent, a cycle of revolution and reaction slowly dismantled the feudal system and laid the basis for the revolutions of 1848 (which by the way are the culmination of the book's era.)

The greatest value in this book is the complex and multi-causal explanation of the transition period between feudal agriculture and capitalist industrialism.

No simplistic model of linear progress and isolated effects with single causes are to be found here.  Instead, Hobsbawm has laid out the interwoven tapestry of events during the period when Western Culture reached its climax stage as Western Civilization.