Uncommon People: Resistance, Rebellion, and Jazz. - Review - book reviews

To record the history of the left--both political and cultural--is the purpose of Eric Hobsbawm's exceptional collection of essays: Uncommon People: Resistance, Rebellion, and Jazz (The New Press, 1998). Hobsbawm, the world's greatest living historian and, along with Gore Vidal, one of its greatest living essayists, fills Uncommon People with twenty-six essays that span his long career.

Some of the writing is on predictable topics: the cultural consequences of Christopher Columbus, the itinerant radicalism of Tom Paine, and the roots of May Day. But other pieces, such as a reflection on Mario Puzo and the mafia, and richly drawn commentaries on Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and Billie Holiday, explore turf that is not associated with the author of classic texts such as Age of Extremes. Hobsbawm's range is broad, his eye is keen, and his knack for finding the epic in what others would dismiss as less than a footnote is nothing short of inspired.

John Nichols is the editorial page editor for The Capital Times in Madison, Wisconsin.

COPYRIGHT 1998 The Progressive, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group