Evaluate the differences between historians and their interpretations of the Twentieth Century.

Starting with Hobsbawm's perspective, (Marxist) Although the Marxist approach gives great weight to the role of the masses at certain historical conjunctures, the main appeal of Marxist history is that it offers a particularly useful way of conceiving the totality of social relations in any given society. It is not just that the political, social, economic and technological all have their place; in a full scale Marxist analysis these familiar distinctions lose their force. Social and economic history become inseparable and the study of politics is saved from becoming the minute reconstruction of the antics of professional politicians in their own arena, to which it can so easily be restricted to the specialist. Hobsbawm is considered one of the finest writers of the broad historical survey today, combining sound scholarship with a lay appeal, Haute vulgarisation in his own words. 

Hobsbawm's interpretation of the twentieth century is that it was an age of extremes, lasting from the outbreak of war in 1914 to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, hence the analogy 'the short twentieth century'. Which follows on from his 'long nineteenth century' (1789-1914) theory, which he defined in the previous books in the 'Age of . . .' series. This concept is perfectly credible, as it is widely accepted that the ideals of the nineteenth century only came to an end with the first world war. Nevertheless for a book on the history of the twentieth century there should at least be some mention of pre-1914. One thing that is striking in regards to The Age of Extremes is that it is incredibly one sided in favour of Marxism, (Hobsbawm's sympathies with communism lie in his own social and cultural background - which will be discussed later) downplaying the significance of fascism in the twentieth century, in favour of the epic struggle between communism and capitalism. The bias can be seen in statements such as: ". . . for the victory over Hitler's Germany was essentially won, and could only have been won, by the Red Army." Also in regards to the Soviet Union, Hobsbawm omits all mention of the massacre at Katyn, the terrifying secret police apparatus of Beria, as well as the gulag.

If one looks at Hobsbawm's social background the reasons for him becoming a  communist soon become obvious, both his parents died during the depression - with the social insurance of 'Red Vienna' covering his mothers medical bills. He then moved to Berlin in 1931 'as the world economy collapsed' prompting him to join the socialist schoolboys. Hobsbawm states: "In Germany there wasn't any alternative left. Liberalism was failing. If id been German and not a Jew, I could see I might have become a Nazi, a German Nationalist. I could see how they'd become passionate about saving the nation . . . It was a time when you didn't believe there was a future unless the world was fundamentally transformed." After moving to London in 1933 he viewed communism as a 'Blakean vision of the new Jerusalem'.

Mark Mazower's (not Marxist) interpretation of the twentieth is summed up in Dark Continent : Europe's 20th Century. Mazower argues that the triumph of liberal democracy in Europe was never inevitable, but was in fact the result of pure chance and the real victor in 1989 was not democracy but capitalism, an area where Hobsbawm agrees. Nevertheless the major difference between Mazower and Hobsbawm, is their views on Hitler and Fascism - as afore mentioned Hobsbawm downplays the role of fascism in shaping twentieth century Europe, as Mazower states:        

"It would of course be possible to take a different view of the century, focusing less upon fascism than upon communism . . . Marxist historiography exemplified recently in Eric Hobsbawm's panoramic Age of Extremes . . . downplays fascism's significance in its concentration upon what it regards as the fundamental struggle between communism and capitalism. If I had chosen not to do this here its partly because communism's impact upon democracy - important though it was - was in general more indirect and less threatening than the challenge posed by Hitler."

The evidence suggests that Mazower's analogy of the threat to capitalism, posed by Hitlers New Order is superior to that of Hobsbawm's simply because the Nazi utopia needed war to achieve its objectives - where as the U.S.S.R was now committed to 'socialism in one country', after it became apparent the world revolution would not come. Nevertheless Hobsbawm recognisers this, but claims that the threat to liberal institutions in this period came exclusively from the right, at a time when there were socialist movements across most of western Europe. In Mazower's view, liberal democracy's collapse was the result of its focus on process rather than on results:

"Russia's liberals turned out to be the first . . . but not the last, to assume mistakenly that a deep-rooted social problem could be solved by offering 'the poeple' constitutional liberties." Both Lenin and Mussolini (as well as Hitler) knew better; in interwar Europe many were glad to trade their constitutional  liberties away for peace, land, bread, and breaking of the Versailles Treaty. Hobsbawm was one of the many, who again applies a Marxist analogy to the rise of fascism: "The rise of the radical right after the first world war was undoubtedly a response to the danger, indeed to the reality, of social revolution and working class power in general, to the October revolution and Leninism in particular."

Another difference between Hobsbawm and Mazower in their interpretations of the twentieth century, is their focus on the vast scientific and technological advances that have took place - which I mentioned briefly in the introduction. Mazower's Dark Continent fails to mention any of of the advances and the differences they have made to the lives of ordinary people since 1900. (nuclear weapons are discussed however) Hobsbawm nevertheless does discuss breakthroughs such as Crick and Watson's discovery of the structure of DNA (the 'Double Helix') and nuclear reactions at Los Alamos, which led to discoveries in quantum mechanics. However his main focus is on the paradox: "No period in history has been more penetrated by and more dependent on the natural sciences than the twentieth century. Yet no period, since Galileo's recantation, has been less at ease with it." The paradox being the different

ways both Stalinism and German National Socialism rejected science, even as they used it for technological purposes.

A historian that takes a different approach to both Hobsbawm and Mazower, much less ideological, focussing less on the doom and gloom and more on the advances in the changes of the lives of ordinary people in his analysis of the twentieth century is Peter Waldron who states: "Historians and commentators condemned the century as the most violent in human history and almost universally judged the period to be one of almost unmitigated disaster for Europe and the wider world. I want to argue however, that his gloomy view of the last century is misleading and fails to take into account the huge advances that ordinary people have witnessed in their lives." Although Waldron considers the horrors, (including the Soviet gulag, something that Hobsbawm fails to do) the centre theme of his argument is the vast social changes that have took place, such as increasing life expectancy, advances in medical technology, improvements in public health as well as increasing literacy levels. He also focuses more on the individual. The evidence suggests Waldron's argument is a more balanced thesis, as he states: "The twentieth century was clearly one of hardship and terror for many Europeans, but we must balance this experience against the slower yet inexorable process of social change that have steadily worked their way across the continent." One thing that is missing from all mentioned historians interpretations, is the fact western Europe has experienced 60 years of peace.

The historians writing histories of the twentieth century reach different conclusions, as we have seen throughout the course of essay. Hobsbawm states: "nobody can write the history of the twentieth century like that of any other era, if only because nobody can write about his or her own lifetime as one can (and must) write about a period known only from the outside . . ." Also we are shaped by our own social and cultural background, as well as memory - especially in the case of Hobsbawm who lived through most of the century, memories can be fragmented however. Hobsbawm's analysis, although comprehensive demonstrates how one sided and ideological an interpretation can be. (As well as no mention of pre - 1914) Nevertheless he lived through most of the centuries great events, therefore has an experience. Mazower's Interpretation is a lot less one sided than that of Hobsbawm's, however he still fails to reach the balance that Waldron does - who acknowledges the wars etc but  focuses on the improvements people have witnessed in their lives since 1900.