[peisistratos]

Looking at the examples Delong gave 25 years ago, history has been much kinder to Hobsbawm's bleak vision than Delong's.

> What has happened in the past decade that has so darkened his vision of our human future?

> The past decade has seen good news along a number of important dimensions: The environment is in better shape: the clean-up of the first world continues; the clean-up of the ex-Communist world has begun; and the third world is more aware of environmental degradation. Progress has been made in creating the international climate to guard against ozone depletion and global warming.

[iguy]

If all you take is bleakness, then perhaps. But Hobsbawm's bleakness is more specific, it's about the demise of actually existing Communism as a pole of the world order. And I would say that putting that anywhere near the top of your list of world events to feel sad about seems even stranger now than in 1995.