艾瑞克·霍布斯鲍姆(Honsbawm.E)，出生于第一次世界大战结束的前一年（1917年）。童年在维也纳度过，青少年时期在柏林度过，不论维也纳还是柏林都属于战败的一方。在动荡的年代里，有人选择法西斯，而年轻的霍布斯鲍姆则选择了共产主义。

他在1936年加入共产党，从此以后，马克思主义成为他终审奉行的价值观。1946年加入“共产党历史学家小组”。对他来说，“党”（Party）这个字的“P”具有大写般的重要地位，甚至想象不出如何跟非党员交往恋爱。虽然信奉马克思主义的政治背景令霍布斯鲍姆的教职生涯进展艰辛，但却使他与国际社会间有着更为广泛的接触和研究机会，从而最终建立了他在国际上的崇高声誉。

霍布斯鲍姆的研究以19世纪为主，延伸至17、18世纪和20世纪；研究的地区则从英国、欧洲扩展至拉丁美洲。除了专业领域外，霍氏也经常撰写当代政治、社会评论，历史学、社会学理论，以及艺术、文化批评等。他在劳工运动、农民叛变和世界史范畴中的研究成果，堪称当代史家的顶尖之作，极大地影响了学界，迄今无人能出其右；而其宏观通畅的写作风格，更将叙述史学的魅力扩及至一般大众。

一位有着独特史观的历史学家，写就了脍炙人口的大众历史读物。他认为历史的推动者不是帝王将相，而是“平凡百姓”，甚至是落草为寇的军人和牧人，所以写作了《原始的叛乱》、《盗匪》等探讨平民叛乱的历史书。他认为学术不应该只为少数人服务，因此写就了以一般大众读者为对象、跨越了三个世纪的“四部曲”：《革命的年代》、《资本的年代》、《帝国的年代》、《极端的年代》。

Eric Hobsbawm is considered by many to be our greatest living historian. Robert Heilbroner, writing about Hobsbawm’s The Age of Extremes 1914-1991 said, “I know of no other account that sheds as much light on what is now behind us, and thereby casts so much illumination on our possible futures.” Skeptical, endlessly curious, and almost contemporary with the terrible “short century” which is the subject of Age of Extremes , his most widely read book, Hobsbawm has, for eighty-five years, been committed to understanding the “interesting times” through which he has lived.

Hitler came to power as Hobsbawm was on his way home from school in Berlin, and the Soviet Union fell while he was giving a seminar in New York. He was a member of the Apostles at King’s College, Cambridge, took E.M. Forster to hear Lenny Bruce, and demonstrated with Bertrand Russell against nuclear arms in Trafalgar Square. He translated for Che Guevara in Havana, had Christmas dinner with a Soviet master spy in Budapest and an evening at home with Mahalia Jackson in Chicago. He saw the body of Stalin, started the modern history of banditry and is probably the only Marxist asked to collaborate with the inventor of the Mars bar.

Hobsbawm takes us from Britain to the countries and cultures of Europe, to America (which he appreciated first through movies and jazz), to Latin America, Chile, India and the Far East. With Interesting Times , we see the history of the twentieth century through the unforgiving eye of one of its most intensely engaged participants, the incisiveness of whose views we cannot afford to ignore in a world in which history has come to be increasingly forgotten.