In a speech of welcome, David Latchman, master of Birkbeck ¨C which Professor Hobsbawm joined as a lecturer in 1947 and where he served as president from 2002 until his death ¨C said he was someone who had ¡°clearly made a difference to people¡¯s lives¡±.

At graduation ceremonies, Professor Latchman recalled of Professor Hobsbawm, ¡°the production line would be slowed down by people saying: ¡®You influenced me! You are the reason I am here! You are the reason why I graduated!¡¯ A proportion of them would be so excited at meeting their hero that they walked off the stage without remembering to shake hands with me.¡±

Roy Foster, Carroll Builders professor of Irish history at the University of Oxford, described the vastly learned Professor Hobsbawm as ¡°a worldwide web in himself¡±, while Roderick Floud, provost of Gresham College, claimed he had ¡°reinvented labour history¡± and ¡°electrified social history¡±.

Leslie Bethell, a British historian of Latin America now based in Brazil, noted Professor Hobsbawm¡¯s extraordinary fame in that country. Even in his 80s, when he attended a literary festival there, he was ¡°greeted like a visiting rock star with girls in the street shouting out: Eric, Eric, give me a kiss!¡¯¡±

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Daughter Julia Hobsbawm spoke of her father as an inspiring but ¡°deeply impractical¡± man who ¡°once sat next to me on the bus for 10 minutes before he realised I was there¡±.

Martin Jacques, former editor of Marxism Today, where Professor Hobsbawm was for many years their ¡°most important and influential writer¡± discovered in him ¡°the exact antithesis of the dull predictability often found on the left. You never knew quite what he was going to say, but you waited on his every word.¡±

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Simon Schama, university professor of history and art history at ColumbiaUniversity, recalled standing in a bookshop ¡°bug-eyed with silent illumination¡± when he first came across Professor Hobsbawm¡¯s work as he was about to apply for university. Later acquaintance had only deepened his admiration for ¡°bandit-hunting Eric, jazzy, snazzy Eric¡± as a ¡°complete historian who defied all the little games of side-choosing¡± and ¡°simply couldn¡¯t get enough of the exhilarating peculiarity of the human condition¡±.

matthew.reisz@tsleducation.com