Description: The central ideas of Isaiah Berlin (1909-1997) remain as alive for our century as they did for his, and his enduring importance as a thinker is matched by his reputation as an essayist of the first rank. This in-depth exploration of a selection of Berlin's most important essays, by a rich variety of distinguished scholars, offers a critical appraisal of Berlin's wide-ranging intellectual preoccupations and their relation to the deep, persistent questions of human life. Each of the contributors examines Berlin's understanding of humanity through one of his essays, including 'The Hedgehog and the Fox', 'Two Concepts of Liberty' and 'Winston Churchill in 1940', together with less famous ones such as 'The Divorce between the Sciences and the Humanities' and 'The Purpose of Philosophy'. The result is a fresh, insightful portrait of a fascinating mind.
Brief description: Johnny Lyons is an independent scholar and graduate of Trinity College Dublin and the University of Cambridge. He is the author of The Philosophy of Isaiah Berlin (2020) and Isaiah Berlin and his Philosophical Contemporaries (2021).
Review Quotes: 'This is a particularly worthy collection of essays on a particularly worthy humanist, Isaiah Berlin. To understand Berlin is a significant step in understanding humanity. A clever division of labour allocated a different essay out of Berlin's best writings to each of its contributors. The result highlights the main concerns of Berlin's thought, such as value pluralism, liberty and nationalism alongside the contrast between the sciences and the humanities, and more. The essays in the collection are excellent on two counts: exposition and sympathetic criticism. Isaiah Berlin was an oral thinker. He had a special knack for making those engaged in conversation with him wiser than they usually were. The collection retains some of Berlin's magic, hence a chance for us readers to become wiser. If the clash between liberalism and populism is a keen interest for many of us today, the collection helps us indirectly to understand the undercurrents of this wicked clash.' Avishai Margalit, Hebrew University of Jerusalem/Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton