Hobsbawm's career as a public intellectual has been defined by his celebrated histories of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (The Age of Extremes 1914-1991 [1994], for example) and by his unflinching Marxism. His autobiography delineates his uncommon trajectory through the twentieth century: birth in Alexandria, childhood as a Jew in Austria and Hitler's Berlin, intellectual maturation in Cambridge, and a multinational academic career to follow. It's an interesting life, to be sure, but more interesting is his perspective on his communist past and the academic life. Hobsbawm's retrospective musings are nostalgic yet honest about the shortcomings of international socialism; they reveal the gently conflicted perspective of one whose political vision hasn't come to fruition, yet who has enjoyed a fruitful life regardless. And yet, within his lived narrative, his praise of jazz and France and certain academic peers, Hobsbawm's discussion of the emerging "global village" suggests a new appeal to socialism and hope for the future. Hobsbawm readers will enjoy the background and a handful of juicy autobiographical tidbits (how he lost his virginity, for example); neophytes will likely find themselves intrigued enough to look at his earlier work.