The Age Of Capital: 1848-1875

Hobsbawm, Eric

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0349104808 ISBN 13 : 9780349104805

Editeur : Abacus, 1988

A major treatment of the crucial years 1848-1875 - a penetrating analysis of the rise of capitalism throught the world. In the 1860s a new word entered the economic and political vocabulary of the world: "capitalism"; the triumph of a society which believed in competitive private enterprise.

Présentation de l'éditeur :

The first and best, major treatment of the crucial years 1848-1875, a penetrating analysis of the rise of capitalism throught the world.

In the 1860s a new word entered the economic and political vocabulary of the world: 'capitalism'. The global triumph of capitalism is the major theme of history in the decades after 1848. It was the triumph of a society which believed that economic growth rests on competitive private enterprise, on success in buying everything in the cheapest market (including labour) and selling it in the dearest. An economy so based, and therefore nestling naturally on the sound foundations of a bourgoisie composed of those whom energy, merit and intelligence had raised to their position and kept there, would - it was believed - not only create a world of suitably distributed material plenty but of ever-growing enlightenment, reason and human opportunity, an advance of the sciences and the arts, in brief a world of continuous and accelerating material and moral progress.

Présentation de l'éditeur :

In this book, Eric Hobsbawm chronicles the events and trends that led to the triumph of private enterprise and its exponents in the years between 1848 and 1875. Along with Hobsbawm's other volumes, this book constitutes and intellectual key to the origins of the world in which we now live.
    Although it pulses with great events—failed revolutions, catastrophic wars, and a global depression— The Age of Capital is most outstanding for its analyis of the trends that created the new order.  With the sweep and sophistication that have made him one of our greatest historians, Hobsbawm indentifies this epoch's winners and losers, its institutions, ideologies, science, and religion.