Crooked Timber of Humanity: Chapters in the History of Ideas

Berlin, Isaiah; edited by Henry Hardy

ISBN 10: 071954789X / ISBN 13: 9780719547898

Published by John Murray, 1990

First Edition thus, First Printing. Not price-clipped (£18.95 price intact). Published by John Murray, 1990. Octavo. Black boards stamped in gold. Book is like new. Sharp corners and spine straight. Binding tight and pages crisp. Small previous owners name/date on flyleaf. Erratum slip laid-in. Dust jacket is like new. 276 pages. ISBN: 9780719547898. 100% positive feedback. 30 day money back guarantee. NEXT DAY SHIPPING! Excellent customer service. Please email with any questions or if you would like a photo. All books packed carefully and ship with free delivery confirmation/tracking. All books come with free bookmarks. Ships from Southampton, New York. We Buy Books! Individual titles, libraries, collections. Message us if you have books to sell! Seller Inventory # 125358

Synopsis:

Isaiah Berlin is renowned for his analysis of the ideas that have influenced or transformed societies. He has a deep commitment to liberty and pluralism, and has devoted the half-century and more of his professional life as a teacher and lecturer to exploring the conditions which allow these ideals to flourish, and those which threaten them. Utopianism, cultural history, relativism, Fascism, romanticism, nationalism - the range of the eight essays collected here have as their common theme varieties of anti-rationalism. The longest essay, on Joseph de Maistre, is published here for the first time. The title is drawn from a remark by Kant: "Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made".

Review: "Berlin has restored the history of ideas to its true place as a key to unlock the past and explain the present. His is a notable achievement, and this book sustains it" (Raymond Carr Spectator)

"The truest and the most moving of all interpretations of life that my own generation made" (Noel Annan)

"To read Isaiah Berlin is above all to listening to a voice, effervescent, quizzical, often self-mocking, but always full of gaiety and amusement" (John Dunn Times Literary Supplement)

"As a historian of ideas, he has no equal; and what he has to say is expressed in prose of exceptional lucidity and grace" (Anthony Storr Independent)

Bibliographic Details

Title: Crooked Timber of Humanity: Chapters in the ...
Publisher: John Murray
Publication Date: 1990
Binding: Hardcover
Condition: Like New
Dust Jacket Condition: Like New
Edition: First Thus.