Proper Study of Mankind,The:An Anthology of Essays - Softcover

Berlin, Isaiah

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0712673229 ISBN 13: 9780712673228

Publisher: Pimlico, 1998

Synopsis

Isaiah Berlin was one of the leading thinkers of the century, and one of the finest writers. The Proper Study Of Mankind selects some of the best of his essays. The full (and enormous) range of his work is represented here, from the exposition of his most distinctive doctrine - pluralism - to studies of Machiavelli, Tolstoy, Churchill and Roosevelt. In these pages he encapsulates the principal movements that characterise the modern age: romanticism, historicism, Fascism, relativism, irrationalism and nationalism. His ideas are always tied to the people who conceived them, so that abstractions are brought alive. His insights both illuminate the past and offer a key to the burning issues of the today.

About this title

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.

From the Back Cover

'He speaks with such infectious energy that he sweeps us up and carries us with him into territory that had seemed inaccessible. He becomes everyman's guide to everything exciting in the history of ideas.'
New York Review of Books

Isaiah Berlin was one of the leading thinkers of the century, and one of the finest writers. The Proper Study of Mankind provides a selection of the best of his essays. The full (and enormous) range of his work is represented here, from the exposition of his most distinctive doctrine - pluralism- to studies of Machiavelli, Tolstoy, Churchill and Roosevelt. In these pages he encapsulates the principle movements that characterise the modern age: romanticism, historicism, Fascism, relativism, irrationalism and nationalism. His ideas are always tied to the people who conceived them, so that abstractions are brought alive. His insights illuminate the past and offer a key to the burning issues of today.

"A restatement of liberalism in a form by which the world could live."
Anthony Smith, Observer

'His uniqueness can be very well sampled in this admirable selection...Large as it is, it can serve only to stimulate the appetite.' Anthony Quinton, Evening Standard

Edition details

• Publisher: Pimlico
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0712673229
• ISBN 13: 9780712673228
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 704