'A volume which covers the key areas of Berlin's interests in an unusu ally accessible way; it will take its place as, quite simply, the best short introduction to his thinking. ' Sunday Telegraph
Isaiah Berlin was born in Riga, now capital of Latvia, in 1909.
When he was six, his family moved to Russia, and in Petrograd in
1917 Berlin witnessed both Revolutions - Social Democratic and
Bolshevik. In 1921 he and his parents emigrated to England, where
he was educated at St Paul's School, London, and Corpus Christi
College, Oxford. Apart from his war service in New York,
Washington, Moscow and Leningrad, he remained at Oxford thereafter
- as a Fellow of All Souls, then of New College, as Chichele
Professor of Social and Political Theory, and as 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
Sense of Reality, The Proper Study of Mankind, The Roots of
Romanticism, The Power of Ideas, Three Critics of the
Enlightenment, Freedom and Its Betrayal, Liberty, The Soviet Mind
and Political Ideas in the Romantic Age. As an exponent of the
history of ideas he 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.
Each of these essays fulfils Raymond Carver's criterion for the
short story: to leave the reader's body temperature a degree higher
or lower than when the book was opened
*Independent on Sunday*
Shows how seriously he took the task of inspiring the general
reader...displays the full breadth of his learning and
experience
*Daily Telegraph*
Berlin's description of Jews in contemporary Western society is
brilliant, indeed dazzling
*Jewish Chronicle*
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