If all you take is bleakness, then perhaps. But Hobsbawm's bleakness is more specific, it's about the demise of actually existing Communism as a pole of the wor

If all you take is bleakness, then perhaps. But Hobsbawm's bleakness is more specific, it's about the demise of actually existing Communism as a pole of the world order. And I would say that putting that anywhere near the top of your list of world events to feel sad about seems even stranger now than in 1995.