Product Description

First published in 1997, this selection of Berlin's work includes his defence of philosophy and history against assimilation to the methods of science, his seminal essays on liberty and his exposition of pluralism. These are followed by studies of intellectual originators, Russian writers and some of his most distinguished contemporaries.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #258901 in Books
• Published on: 1998-03-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 678 pages

From the Publisher
The long-awaited Isaiah Berlin 'Reader' - an anthology of his best and most representative work, drawn from a lifetime's writing by this most distinguished philosopher and historian of ideas.

About the Author
Isaiah was born in Riga, capital of Latvia, in 1909. When he was six, his family moved to Russia; there in 1917, in Petrograd, he witnessed both Revolutions – Social Democratic, and Bolshevik.
In 1921, his family came to England, and he was educated at St Paul’s School and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. At Oxford, he was a fellow of All Souls, a Fellow of New College, Professor of Social and Political Theory and founding President of Wolfson College. He also held the Presidency of the British Academy. His published work includes Karl Marx, Russian Thinkers, Concepts and Categories, Against the Current, Personal Impressions, The Crooked Timber of Humanity, The Sense of Reality, The Roots of Romanticism, The Power of Ideas, Three Critics of the Enlightenment, Freedom and its Betrayal and Liberty. As an exponent of the history of ideas Berlin was awarded the Erasmus, Lippincott and Agnelli Prizes; he also received the Jerusalem Prize for his lifelong defence of civil liberties. He died in 1997.

Henry Hardy, a Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford, is one of Isaiah Berlin’s Literary Trustees. He has edited several other books by Berlin, and is currently preparing a selection of his letters for publication. Roger Hausheer, Lecturer in German Studies at the University of Bradford, is writing an intellectual life of Isaiah Berlin. He also wrote the introduction to Against the Current.

Customer Reviews

A superb collection of Berlin's Essays
This collection of Berlin's essays contains some of his masterpieces. Unlike many philosophers his writings are always clear, accessible and written with great style. Amongst my favourites in this volume are his essay on Machiavelli,which illustrates his views on the incommensurability and incompatibility of sets of values, and Herder with his counter-enlightenment views on individual cultures which cannot be ranked against one another. In addition to the examination of the ideas of thinkers such as these there are essays on broader concepts and themes, including Berlin's famous essay on the two concepts of liberty, and various sketches of famous people in the twentieth century, such as Churchill, Roosevelt, Akhmatova and Pasternak. This book is one of the weightier tomes (seventeen essays) of Berlin's writing, but I think it gives the widest illustration of Berlin's range of thought and interest.