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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What contrast became very clear as industrialism developed in Europe?

2. How were Charles Dickens' novels connected to the politics of Dickens' time, in Hobsbawm's account?

3. Why were the working poor treated with contempt as a new social structure evolved in Europe?

4. How did the people in political power react to middle class ideology, in Hobsbawm's account?

5. What stage was the political theory in when the organizers were making promises to the workers in the mid-1800s?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Hobsbawm say was growing along with and as a result of Protestantism?

2. How does Hobsbawm define middle class ideology?

3. What does Hobsbawm say labor organizers were promising workers, as the gap between rich and poor grew?

4. How, in Hobsbawm's account, did European land reforms fare in other places?

5. Why does Hobsbawm describe the changing use of the landscape "the most catastrophic phenomenon" of the period?

6. Why was France's economy left behind, in Hobsbawm's account?

7. How does Hobsbawm describe the working class' living conditions?

8. What are the three sources Hobsbawm refers to when he says that artists made the effects of industrialization a common theme?

9. What does Hobsbawm say was increasing around 1848?

10. What opportunities were open because of the Industrial Revolution that were not open before, in Hobsbawm's account?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Hobsbawm describes the importance of nationalism in the development of a middle class that had developed its own characteristic ideology, which was marked by a faith in a universe that progressed either toward spiritual fulfillment (Hegel) or communism (Marx). Both of these conclusions were for the mass, though, and it would not be until Freud that people could see the difficulties of being individuals within a mass or nation.

Write an essay that addresses the importance of nationalism in your life. In what ways are you a national creature? Does your nationalism interfere with or obscure your individuality?

Essay Topic 2

Write a detailed review of "The Age of Revolution". What are the book's main themes and preoccupations? What are its methods? How does it achieve its intentions? Where does it fail to?

Essay Topic 3

What was the role of the Jews in the Industrial Revolution and French Revolution? How did they participate in the transformation of European society? How did they benefit by it? How was their experience different than other groups' experiences?

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