Promotional Information

'These lectures represent Berlin at his best- quick-minded, erudite, witty and profound, and, above all, exciting. To read this book is to feel the force of living thought coming white-hot from the forge of a superb mind.' John Banville, Irish Times

About the Author

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.

Reviews

Exhilaratingly thought-provoking
*The Times*

Isaiah Berlin at the height of his glory
*Independent on Sunday*

In an era where humane intellectual discourse has been deconstructed, intertextualised, phallicised and generally kicked senseless, Berlin's writing shines like a beacon
*Spectator*

A profound, if often tantalising, contribution to an understanding of the West's culture... This is a book that would be as salutary a read for prime ministers and presidents as for those who see themselves as cultural critics
*The Times Higher Education Supplement*

Exhilaratingly thought-provoking -- Iain Finlayson * The Times *
Isaiah Berlin at the height of his glory -- Michael Foot * Independent on Sunday *
In an era where humane intellectual discourse has been deconstructed, intertextualised, phallicised and generally kicked senseless, Berlin's writing shines like a beacon -- Rupert Christiansen * Spectator *
A profound, if often tantalising, contribution to an understanding of the West's culture... This is a book that would be as salutary a read for prime ministers and presidents as for those who see themselves as cultural critics -- Peter Mudford * The Times Higher Education Supplement *

Presented to the general public by Berlin (1909-97) at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, in 1965, these lectures were never reworked into the scripted volume with which he hoped to treat the topic. However, Hardy (Oxford Univ.), one of Berlin's literary trustees, provides us with both the substance of the lectures and the supporting bibliographic notes from which Berlin worked on his idea of romanticism, "the largest recent movement to transform the lives and the thought of the Western world." Arguing that the concept flows from late 18th-century German thought and society, Berlin addresses romanticism's effect on the Enlightenment, the roles played by Hamann, Herder, and other early Romanticists in the codification of the movement, the more distilled approaches of Kant and Schiller, and romanticism's lingering effects on Western intellectual posture. The lecture pace of this volume makes it an excellent resource for both beginning researcher and seasoned scholar. For all collections.ÄFrancisca Goldsmith, Berkeley P.L., CA Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.