- Hardcover: 752 pages
- Publisher: Cambridge University Press (4 Jun 2004)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 052183368X
- ISBN-13: 978-0521833684
- Product Dimensions: 23.8 x 15.8 x 5.8 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 937,446 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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'Isaiah Berlin was one of the great letter writers of the twentieth century: witty, indiscrete, passionate, wise and unbuttoned. He also lived through extraordinary moments of 20th century history, and these letters capture these moments: Nazi brown shirts in Austrian cafes in the 1930s, German refugees in Jerusalem, the debates at All Souls about the war, Washington during the height of the Churchill-Roosevelt alliance. In Henry Hardy, Berlin has found an ideal editor: scrupulous, self-effacing, dogged and tenaciously accurate. The result is one of the great editing achievements in modern letters.' Michael Ignatieff, author of Isaiah Berlin: A Life
Product Description
This first volume of letters inaugurates a keenly awaited edition of Berlin's letters. Berlin's life was enormously worth living, both for himself and for us; and fortunately he said a great deal to his friends on paper as well as in person. When this volume opens Berlin is eighteen, a pupil at St Paul's School in London. He becomes an undergraduate at Oxford, then a Fellow at All Souls, where he writes his famous biography of Karl Marx. When that is complete he moves to New College to teach philosophy, and after the outbreak of the Second World War sails to America in somewhat mysterious circumstances with Guy Burgess. He stays in the USA, working for the British Government (apart from visits home and his famous trip to the Soviet Union in 1945-6) until July 1946, when he returns to Oxford, and the volume closes.
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5.0 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fantastic collection of Berlin's early letters, 8 Aug 2004
By Mark Klobas - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Isaiah Berlin: Letters, 1928-1946 (Hardcover)
Few philosophers in the twentieth century have had more of an impact on their times than Isaiah Berlin. Born in Russia in 1909, he immigrated to Great Britain with his family in 1921, where he went on to a fantastically successful academic career, first at New College, Oxford, then as a fellow of All Souls. His burgeoning career as a young philosopher (during which time he wrote his excellent short biography of Karl Marx) was put on hold by the Second World War. Though initially destined for the Soviet Union, he ended up in the United States, where he wrote weekly surveys of American politics that were unmatched for their insights and still reward reading.
Berlin's insights were not just reserved for his superiors in London, though, as they infused his correspondence with his family and friends. This book, the first of three projected volumes, collects the letters he wrote during these early years, giving us a unique view of the man and his times. The Isaiah Berlin we see in these pages is witty and perceptive, not just about the people he encountered but about himself. His pride in his identity as a Jew is also apparent, and the letters chronicle his interaction with the flourishing Zionist movement of the 1940s as well as his involvement in academics and his work for the British embassy.
Berlin's erudition also is evident in these pages, as is his penchant for name-dropping. Navigating through the people and places he writes about is a monumental task, and one that the editor, Henry Hardy, performs admirably. His footnotes provide an indispensable guide to the letters, vastly increasing the reader's understanding of Berlin's activities and encounters. The result is a work that offers a window into life in interwar Britain, the politics of wartime America, and the life of a great intellectual who lived in the world rather than apart from it.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
700 Pages of Irrepressible Isaiah Berlin, 24 Jun 2004
By Ronald H. Clark - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Isaiah Berlin: Letters, 1928-1946 (Hardcover)
If you are interested in Isaiah Berlin, and in understanding his roots and evolution, this is the book for you. These letters cover the period of 1928-1946, and deal with some very fascinating topics such as Oxford in the 1930's, Berlin's service in Washington and New York during World War II, and a cast of well known British, Continental and American characters. The collection is immeasurably enhanced by yet another superb job of editing by Henry Hardy, including an extended preface, extensive notes and a biographical directory which save the American reader from becoming too lost. But Berlin being Berlin, the letters are sometimes overly long, may deal with mundate topics, can be maddeningly repetitive, or lose one in the intricacies of Oxford and the academic life. Berlin is absolutely unrestrained in his comments, both pro and con, since these were meant to be private letters, and his views of some fellow academics can be devastating. However, he can positively support some individuals, such as H.L.A. Hart whose initial appointment as Fellow and Philosophy Tutor at New College Berlin strongly advocated. The book is dedicated to Hart's wife who provided indispensable assistance to Hardy in putting all this material together. As the letters illustrate, Berlin's prolonged struggle in writing his book on Karl Marx goes a long way toward explaining why his book output was so limited and he preferred to express his thinking in essays. This first volume concludes when Berlin is 37 and has returned to Oxford. By this point in the letters, one begins to have a very solid grasp of Berlin's character, interests, interactions, and ambitions. "Berlin on Berlin" is beyond question the best way to come to know and understand him.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hedgehog, fox, 26 Mar 2005
By John C. Landon "nemonemini" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Isaiah Berlin: Letters, 1928-1946 (Hardcover)
"Life is not worth living unless one can be indiscrete to intimate friends', opines the remarkable Berlin in this collection of his early letters. Isaiah Berlin is one of the most engaging figures of twentieth century letters, and this early first volume stretches from his school years, through to his classic work on Marx, thence the war, and subsequent Cold War. Berlin the witty conversationalist manifests in these epistolations, with their colorful background amidst ominous political events of high drama.
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