3rd & last volume of the 'Long 19th Century' trilogy. Hobsbawm deserves credit for stressing that the 19th Century - indeed the entire era of grandiose European expansion - didn't end at the very turn of the 20th Century but later, with the First World War, & after several decades of an imperialistic, zero-sum 'scramble' for the remaining unconquered corners of the globe. A discreditable race, alongside which Hobsbawm seems to have jettisoned whatever little sympathy he might still have had for the people & periods, at least more earnest & truly innovative, described earlier in his trilogy. He does like the popular movement. ( )