Hobsbawm Bibliography

Economics, History and HOPE

“…As one astute commentator has remarked of 'cliometric' (i.e., econometric history) the general difficulties encountered include: the imperfections in surviving data; the needling question (usually unresolved) of how well the sample of surviving evidence delineates the larger universe from which it comes; the uncertain operation of relevant, non-operational causal factors; the unknown degree of imperfection in any theoretical model resulting from its neglect of non-operational factors and its assumptions which distort reality -an unknown which remains immutable for want of an operational way of testing how much that neglect and distortion affects the ultimate explanatory power of the model. 47 In constructing their theories econometricians and historians have a number of obvious problems in common, for example: 12) The current commonplace that facts are theory-laden, i.e., that their meaning -like that of a text ~ is matter of interpretation, does not mean that any interpretation is as good as any other. On this matter such differing scholars as Stanley Fish, Richard Rorty, and Geoffrey Elton -the distinguished and methodologically conservative historian --are in agreement.…”