The nineteenth-century trilogy of the famous British historian Eric Hobsbawm is one of the greatest achievements of modern historical thought. The solution to this phenomenal success is simple: after several decades of hard and painstaking work, the English scientist created a detailed and original review of the most important phenomena and processes characteristic of European society between 1789 and 1914. At the same time, he not only summarized the facts, but also tried to fit them into the system of historical synthesis, "recreate the spirit of that time." In The Age of Empire, Hobsbawm showed how and why "classical capitalism" fell into decay, and the relatively peaceful period of development of European society was fraught with the First World War, revealed the reasons that led to the crisis of bourgeois morality and society as a whole.