The Age of Capital

Name: The Age of Capital
Rating: 4.6 (390 reviews)

by Eric Hobsbawm Book 2 in the The Age of… series.

First published 1975

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4.5(390)

The Age of Capital begins with the defeat of the European revolutions of 1848 and follows the rapid international expansion of industrial capitalism through 1875. Railways, steamships, new communications and growing financial markets bind regions together while the bourgeois ideals of enterprise, progress and private property acquire unprecedented authority.

Hobsbawm places this economic transformation alongside national unification in Italy and Germany, the American Civil War, imperial expansion and the changing balance among European powers. He also examines the growth of cities, labour movements, science and mass culture, showing how material confidence coexisted with deep social inequality and political conflict.

Historical Periods

Victorian Era1837–1901 CE American Civil War1861–1865 CE Italian Unification1815–1871 CE Austro-Prussian War14 June–23 August 1866 Franco-Prussian War19 July 1870–10 May 1871

Genres

Court & Political Fiction

Historical people

Victoria1819–1901 Napoleon III1808–1873 Giuseppe Garibaldi1807–1882 Abraham Lincoln1809–1865 Franz Joseph I of Austria1830–1916 Otto von Bismarck1815–1898