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영어

Eric Hobsbawm is a famous marxist historian who has sustained his own belief since the fall of socialist bloc. He realized through Marx that he should learn history in order to understand the appearance happened in this world and that he had a belief which history could be comprehended and analysed as a coherent whole. At the same time he thought that what Marx tried to seek law in history was only the vestige of old positivism. He has tried to develop position of Marx in history through seeking structures and patterns in changing history of human society. But he refused simple economic determinism as vulgar marxism. He has tried to overcome ‘economic determinism between superstructure and basis’ and has sought ‘history from below’ and has made a great contribution to ‘theory of class determination.’ He had a positive attitude to accept various non-marxist methodology. Although he criticized basically post-modern history, he has tried to synthesize macro-analysis and micro-analysis. He wanted to appreciate simultaneously various aspects of society: economy, politics, culture, religion etc. This positive attitude to see whole history was well expressed in ‘the history of society’ that he himself elaborated. This historical approach of Hobsbawm can be recognized as representative of attempt to see history in totality. The history of society has more merit than model of F. Braudel and Wallerstein. Hobsbawm takes serious view of social relation of production and reduces never human experience into economic or political-economic thing. So historical method of Hobsbawm can be estimated superior than other method and also can be suggested as an alternative against ‘post-modern’ history.