"It Is This Side of His Work, Rather Than His Marxism, That Now Does the Most to Keep It Readable and Relevant"

"In the preface to Fractured Times, Hobsbawm relates its essays to the larger themes of his historical work, and formulates the following thesis. 'The logic of both capitalist development and bourgeois civilisation itself,' he writes, 'were bound to destroy its foundation, a society and institutions run by a progressive elite minority.' Technological innovation, mass politics and above all the rise of 'mass consumption' made it impossible for the educated bourgeoisie to dictate taste to the rest of the population, or even to preserve their own cultural practices and institutions. In a world of mass entertainment, swept by constant technological innovation and the ceaseless pursuit of the new, artistic and literary production could no longer consist primarily of adding a steady stream of fresh, critically approved works to a stable canon. The traditional forms themselves—orchestral music, opera, framed painting—waned, and the cultural initiative passed to the producers of film, television and rock music. Symphony halls closed while Hollywood grew fat."


David A. Bell in The National Interest reviews Eric Hobsbawm's Fractured Times: Culture and Society in the Twentieth Century.