Kmflett's Blog

The University Challenge Christmas series, consisting of teams of Alumni, on Monday 29th December featured St Hilda’s Oxford and Edinburgh

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002p24b/university-challenge-christmas-2025-6-st-hildas-college-oxford-v-edinburgh

Amol Rajan asked who the joint author (with Terence Ranger) of the book the Invention of Tradition was. He prompted with a further clue that the historian had written a series of books such as the Age of Industry and the Age of Empire.

No one was able to answer Eric Hobsbawm. The best guest was AJP Taylor.

This might perhaps have been excusable in the main University Challenge series where current students compete. However for the Christmas version the teams are Alumni of graduates now long distinguished in their respective fields

Eric Hobsbawm one of the best known post-1945 Marxist historians died in 2012

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Hobsbawm