The Age of Capital, 1848-1875 in Bloomington, MN

In this book, Eric Hobsbawm chronicles the events and trends that led to the triumph of private enterprise and its exponents in the years between 1848 and 1875.  Along with Hobsbawm's other volumes, this book constitutes and intellectual key to the origins of the world in which we now live.
Although it pulses with great events—failed revolutions, catastrophic wars, and a global depression—
The Age of Capital
is most outstanding for its analyis of the trends that created the new order.  With the sweep and sophistication that have made him one of our greatest historians, Hobsbawm indentifies this epoch's winners and losers, its institutions, ideologies, science, and religion.