Isaiah Berlin - Softcover

Ignatieff, Michael

3.73 out of 5 stars

1,237 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0143054635 ISBN 13: 9780143054634

Publisher: Penguin Canada, 2006

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Isaiah Berlin was witness to a century. Born in the twilight of the Czarist empire, he lived long enough to see the Soviet state collapse.

The son of a Riga timber merchant and the first Jew elected to a fellowship at All Souls, Oxford, he was a historian of Russian intelligentsia, biographer of Marx, scholar of the Romantic movement, and defender of the liberal idea of freedom against Soviet tyranny.

In this definitive biography, a remarkable ten-year collaboration between biographer and subject, Michael Ignatieff charts the emergence of a unique liberal temperament—serene, comic, secular, and unafraid—while examining its influence on Berlin's vision of liberalism, which stressed the often tragic nature of political and moral choice.

A masterful work, illuminating, and beautifully written, Isaiah Berlin: A Life is destined to take its place among the great modern biographies.

"Michael Ignatieff has written a brilliant, tender, and insightful biography of this complex, important, and influential thinker."—The Globe and Mail

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Review

Russian by birth, Jewish by descent, English by choice, Isaiah Berlin (1909-97) knit together three identities into a cosmopolitan sensibility that informed his contributions as one of the 20th century's most influential and important intellectuals. Based on his experiences as a child during the Russian Revolution and his friendships with such beleaguered writers as Boris Pasternak and Anna Akhmatova, Berlin affirmed the superiority of individual freedom and judgment to Marxist totalitarianism. But he made fellow liberals uncomfortable with his unwelcome reminders that their ideals--liberty, equality, social justice--inevitably conflicted and required painful tradeoffs. London-based journalist Michael Ignatieff, who spent 10 years interviewing Berlin before his death, adeptly captures an appealing man: lighthearted, spontaneous, a brilliant conversationalist and lecturer (one of Oxford University's most popular professors), able to savor private happiness despite an essentially tragic view of political life. Ignatieff admires Berlin's views without accepting them uncritically; similarly, he acknowledges personal failings while appreciating the serenity Berlin achieved against considerable odds. This lucidly written, thoughtfully argued work is a model of the well-balanced biography, carefully evaluating the complex interplay of character and conviction in one remarkable individual. --Wendy Smith

About the Author

Michael Ignatieff is a regular contributor to The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books. He is the author of The Warrior's Honor (Metropolitan Books, 0-8050-5519-3), The Russian Album, The Needs of Strangers, and Scar Tissue, a novel short-listed for the Booker Prize. He lives in London.

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