Name: liberty
Price: 1146.00 ZAR
Availability: InStock
Author: Isaiah Berlin
ISBN: 9780199249893

Type

Physical Book

Author

Isaiah Berlin

Illustrated by

Henry Hardy

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Language

English

Pages

416

Format

Paperback

Dimensions

23.4 x 15.9 x 2.2 cm

Weight

0.66 kg.

ISBN

019924989X

ISBN13

9780199249893

Edition No.

0002

Synopsis "liberty"

Liberty is a revised and expanded edition of the book that Isaiah Berlin regarded as his most important--Four Essays on Liberty, a standard text of liberalism, constantly in demand and constantly discussed since it was first published in 1969. Writing in Harper's, Irving Howe described it as "an exhilarating performance--this, one tells oneself, is what the life of the mind can be." Berlin's editor Henry Hardy has revised the text, incorporating a fifth essay that Berlin himself had wanted to include. He has also added further pieces that bear on the same topic, so that Berlin's principal statements on liberty are at last available together in one volume. Finally, in an extended preface and in appendices drawn from Berlin's unpublished writings, he exhibits some of the biographical sources of Berlin's lifelong preoccupation with liberalism. These additions help us to grasp the nature of Berlin's "inner citadel," as he called it--the core of personal conviction from which some of his most influential writing sprung.

Isaiah Berlin

(Author)

View Author's Page

Isaiah Berlin (1909–1997) was an influential British philosopher and thinker of Latvian origin, known for his contributions to political theory and the history of ideas. Born in Riga, Latvia, his family emigrated to England in 1921. He studied at the University of Oxford, where he became a fellow of All Souls College and New College, and also founded Wolfson College. During World War II, he worked as a diplomat in Washington and Moscow. He was president of the British Academy from 1974 to 1978 and received various awards for his intellectual work.

His most famous essay, The Hedgehog and the Fox (1953), interprets Leon Tolstoy's view of history through an Archilochus metaphor: “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.” Berlin classifies thinkers into two types: the "hedgehogs," who structure their worldview around a single central idea, and the "foxes," who have a more scattered and multiple perspective. According to Berlin, Tolstoy embodies both roles: by his talent, a fox; by his convictions, a hedgehog.

This essay has become an essential work for understanding the different approaches to thought and history.

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