Born in Alexandria in 1917, Eric Hobsbawm was educated in Vienna, Berlin, London and Cambridge. A Fellow of the British Academy and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he taught for most of his career at Birkbeck College, University of London, where he was Emeritus Professor of Economic and Social History. He is best known for his trilogy of studies on the long 19th century (The Age of Revolution: Europe 1789-1848, The Age of Capital: 1848-1875 and The Age of Empire: 1875-1914). He died in London in October 2012 at the age of ninety-five.