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The First and the Last (Hardcover)
by Isaiah Berlin (Author), Henry Hardy (Introduction)

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Product details

Hardcover: 144 pages
Publisher: Granta Books (30 Sep 1999)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1862072701
ISBN-13: 978-1862072701
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Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 2,252,576 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Synopsis
This text brings together the earliest known story and last essay written by Sir Isaiah Berlin, who died on 5th November, 1997. "The Purpose Justifies the Ways" was written when he was 12 and was based on a real murder in St Petersburg. "My Intellectual Path" describes the evolution of his thought. Reflections and observations on Sir Isaiah Berlin's life and work are provided by Stuart Hampshire, Avishai Margalit, Bernard Williams, Aileen Kelly and Noel Annan.

Book Information
The First and the Last brings together the earliest known composition and the last essay written by Sir Isaiah Berlin, who died in November, 1997.

"The Purpose Justifies the Ways", written when he was twelve years old, and based on a real murder in St. Petersburg (Petrograd), is his first known piece of writing, as well as his only story. Henry Hardy sees it as "pointing forward to Berlin's repeated later insistence on the inadmissibility of justifying present suffering as a route to some future state of bliss. In this sense the story is the first recorded step on his intellectual journey through life, a journey summarised in his last essay, "My intellectual Path", written seventy-four years later in 1996."

Reflections and observations on Sir Isaiah Berlin's life and work are provided by Stuart Hampshire, Avishai Margalit, Bernard Williams, Alleen Keely and Noel Annan.