Morgan Meis remembers Eric Hobsbawm, the English Marxist historian who passed away [NYT] recently:
As a historian, Hobsbawm was forced, in his analysis, to take an objective stance, to look at history from a position above the fray. But he also seems to have realized that real history only happens when people are within the fray. History had made him a communist and he was going to stay that way. Hobsbawm didn't try to be wiser than his own times. He didn't believe he could out-think the 20th century. He was content to be a living document of one of the defining forces of his era. Self-aware all the way to the end, he was never embarrassed. He never shirked from the implications. He never wanted anyone else to be embarrassed for him.
In a review of Hobsbawm's Interesting Times: A Twentieth Century Life for The New York Times, Christopher Hitchens admitted a grudging admiration for Hobsbawm. Given Hitchens' usual disgust for figures of the communist Left, who he generally dismissed as apologists for Totalitarianism, it was a surprising position. "Hobsbawm's vices," Hitchens wrote, "mutate into his virtues." Hitchens too was struck by the trudging stubbornness of Old Man Hobsbawm. Maybe Hitchens saw in Hobsbawm a perfect foil to himself. It was always Hitchens' fantasy that he could stay one step ahead of the march of history. Here in Hobsbawm was a man who practically reveled in the fact that he had been left behind. Ahead or behind, history has managed to make both of them look foolish. Hobsbawm had decided it was best to be exactly what he was.
The Dish 