Uncommon People: Resistance, Rebellion, and Jazz.

• Author: Nichols, John
• Position: Review - Brief Article

To record the history of the left--both political and cultural--is the purpose of Eric Hobsbawm's exceptional collection of essays: Uncommon People: Resistance, Rebellion, and Jazz (The New Press, 1998). Hobsbawm, the world's greatest living historian and, along with Gore Vidal, one of its greatest living essayists, fills Uncommon People with twenty-six essays that span his long career.

Some of the writing is on predictable topics: the cultural consequences of Christopher Columbus, the itinerant radicalism of Tom Paine, and the roots of May Day. But other pieces, such as a reflection on Mario Puzo and the mafia, and...