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.