Ayear or so ago, the journalist Nick Cohen, reviewing a book by the English Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm, made the mistake of guessing what Hobsbawm’s obituaries would look like. Those who shared Hobsbawm’s political commitments would laud his work, Mr Cohen predicted. Those who did not would say “his loyalty to totalitarianism disfigured his writing”. There would be little agreement between the two camps.
大約一年前,在點(diǎn)評(píng)英國(guó)馬克思主義史學(xué)家埃里克?霍布斯鮑姆(Eric Hobsbawm)寫(xiě)的一本書(shū)時(shí),記者尼克?科恩(Nick Cohen)曾猜測(cè)霍布斯鮑姆的訃告會(huì)是什么樣子。科恩預(yù)言道,政治信仰與霍布斯鮑姆相同的人士會(huì)在訃告中贊美他的工作,而與霍布斯鮑姆持不同政見(jiàn)的人士可能會(huì)說(shuō),“他對(duì)極權(quán)主義的忠誠(chéng)使他的作品變得丑陋”——這兩個(gè)陣營(yíng)對(duì)他的評(píng)價(jià)會(huì)非常不同。