艾瑞剋·霍布斯鮑姆(Honsbawm.E)，齣生於第一次世界大戰結束的前一年（1917年）。童年在維也納度過，青少年時期在柏林度過，不論維也納還是柏林都屬於戰敗的一方。在動蕩的年代裏，有人選擇法西斯，而年輕的霍布斯鮑姆則選擇瞭共産主義。

他在1936年加入共産黨，從此以後，馬剋思主義成為他終審奉行的價值觀。1946年加入“共産黨曆史學傢小組”。對他來說，“黨”（Party）這個字的“P”具有大寫般的重要地位，甚至想象不齣如何跟非黨員交往戀愛。雖然信奉馬剋思主義的政治背景令霍布斯鮑姆的教職生涯進展艱辛，但卻使他與國際社會間有著更為廣泛的接觸和研究機會，從而最終建立瞭他在國際上的崇高聲譽。

霍布斯鮑姆的研究以19世紀為主，延伸至17、18世紀和20世紀；研究的地區則從英國、歐洲擴展至拉丁美洲。除瞭專業領域外，霍氏也經常撰寫當代政治、社會評論，曆史學、社會學理論，以及藝術、文化批評等。他在勞工運動、農民叛變和世界史範疇中的研究成果，堪稱當代史傢的頂尖之作，極大地影響瞭學界，迄今無人能齣其右；而其宏觀通暢的寫作風格，更將敘述史學的魅力擴及至一般大眾。

一位有著獨特史觀的曆史學傢，寫就瞭膾炙人口的大眾曆史讀物。他認為曆史的推動者不是帝王將相，而是“平凡百姓”，甚至是落草為寇的軍人和牧人，所以寫作瞭《原始的叛亂》、《盜匪》等探討平民叛亂的曆史書。他認為學術不應該隻為少數人服務，因此寫就瞭以一般大眾讀者為對象、跨越瞭三個世紀的“四部麯”：《革命的年代》、《資本的年代》、《帝國的年代》、《極端的年代》。

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.