Am heutigen 1.1.2012 ist der Historiker Eric Hobsbawm im Alter von 95 Jahren gestorben. Der Guardian hat den Nachruf, der dazu zu lesen ist.
Had Eric Hobsbawm died 25 years ago, the obituaries would have described him as Britain’s most distinguished Marxist historian and would have left it more or less there. Yet by the time of his death at the age of 95, he had achieved a unique position in the country’s intellectual life. In his later years he became arguably Britain’s most respected historian of any kind, recognised if not endorsed on the right as well as the left, and one of a tiny handful of historians of any era to enjoy genuine national and world renown.
Übrigens: Auch der Biologe und politische Aktivist Barry Commoner ist am heutigen Tag verstorben. Auch er war 95. Die New York Times wäre dazu anzusteuern.
His work on the global effects of radioactive fallout, which included documenting concentrations of strontium 90 in the baby teeth of thousands of children, contributed materially to the adoption of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963.
