The fourth and final volume of Isaiah Berlin's much admired letters
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.
Henry Hardy, a Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford, is one of Isaiah
Berlin's Literary Trustees. he has (co-)edited many other books by
Berlin -- including this volume's three predecessors, Flourishing,
Enlightening and Building -- and other authors, and is also the
editor of The Book of Isaiah- Personal Impressions of Isaiah Berlin
(2009).
Mark Pottle is also a Fellow of Wolfson. He has (co-)edited the
diaries and letters of Violet Bonham Carter, has collaborated in
publishing a number of original First World War documents, and was
Research Associate, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography,
2000-2. He co-edited the preceding volume of these letters,
Building.
One of the great thinkers of the age. Anyone seeking to understand
the 20th century should acquire this volume, and its three
predecessors. They will be both stimulated and enlightened
*Daily Telegraph*
This fourth and final volume of Berlin's letters, admirably edited
by Henry Hardy and Mark Pottle, brings vividly back to life one of
the most wise, witty and generous of men
*Spectator*
The great magus of 20th-century liberalism
*Guardian*
Berlin, at his best, reminding us that he was one of the great
liberal thinkers of the postwar period
*New Statesman*
Modest, polite and beautifully written, these letters can be viewed
as open-ended conversations with kindred spirits. They are also an
important attempt to document the history of the late 20th
century.
*Prospect*
Modest, polite and beautifully written, these letters can be viewed
as open-ended conversations with kindred spirits. They are also an
important attempt to document the history of the late 20th
century.
*Prospect*
Affirming: Letters 1975–1997, edited, superbly, by Henry Hardy and
Mark Pottle, is a joy only slightly dulled by the knowledge that it
is the final volume of Isaiah Berlin’s wise, witty and never less
than entertaining correspondence.
*Guardian, Best Books of 2015*
Isaiah Berlin’s Affirming: Letters 1975-1997 ... contains some
wonderful letters and a huge dollop of Berlin’s capacious mind as
well as his fondness for gossip.
*Guardian, Best Books of 2015*
Starbursts of thought [...] texts full of gaiety, passion and
temperance, which insistently resist the rampaging squaddies of
mindless populism
*The Times Literary Supplement*
A triumphant conclusion [to] one of the most remarkable literary
projects of our time ... amusing, compelling and illuminating ...
Berlin’s Letters stand as a monument to European, Jewish, liberal
civilisation in what may prove to be the last century of its
recognisable flourishing
*Standpoint*
One of the greatest pleasures of last year was polishing off the
fourth and last volume of Isaiah Berlin's letters … He consistently
advanced two beliefs which should be born in mind in these troubled
times. The first was an abhorrence of all-explaining systems of
belief [...] the second is that good and desirable ends - freedom
and equality, justice and security - are all too often
incompatible, as a result of which compromises must be made ... He
was a wise old bird and, if his letters are anything to go by, very
lovable as well.
*The Oldie*
[Affirming] brings together the vividly written, wide-ranging and
penetrating correspondence of one of the great liberal humanist
minds of the 20th century
*Times Higher Education, Books of 2015*
One way of reading this richly absorbing collection is as a running
commentary on the closing decades of the 20th century by one of its
most civilised and penetrating minds. The most unexpected letters,
though, are some long and detailed defences of his own ideas
*Literary Review*
The fourth in the grand series of Isaiah Berlin’s correspondence
[...] keeps up the flow of high cultural commentary and gossip
*Jewish Chronicle*
Affirming is an excellent source for the understanding of Berlin's
thought in various contexts. But the letters also show Berlin's
capacity for friendship, his sympathetic understanding of
characters and viewpoints... At the risk of solecism, Icn bin ein
Berliner
*Oldie*
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