Banditi

Popular bandit heroes are not usually considered ordinary criminals, and the great 20th-century historian Eric Hobsbawm, in his book "Bandits," identifies three types among them that have proven surprisingly universal: the noble robber, the avenger, and the outlaw. In his book, Hobsbawm asks what codes of conduct they lived by? What was their place in the economy and politics of the frontier regions? What distinguishes a bandit from a revolutionary? And why do they appear more often in peasant societies than in industrial ones? Hobsbawm has stretched across four hundred years and four continents to compare historical figures with the ballads, legends, and films they inspired. The result is a brilliant historical satire that is brimming with ideas and strange stories.