The Crooked Timber of Humanity: Chapters in the History of Ideas

Essays explore ideas that transform societies, including social and political questions such as nationalism, European unity, fascism, relativism, and cultural history

A great adventurer in the history of ideas, eminent Russian-born Oxford historian Berlin ferrets out the roots of the prejudice, intolerance, fanaticism and lust for domination that blight the modern world. He is leery of disruptive nationalisms that presume a nation's unique mission and intrinsic superiority--and that often foster racial and ethnic hatreds. He persuasively interprets 18th-century French reactionary thinker Joseph de Maistre as a harbinger of fascism. The Romantic movement's dismissal of the very notion of objective truth, its glorification of defiance and martyrdom, are, to Berlin, a disturbing legacy. While nodding to cultural pluralism, he insists that "we inhabit one common moral world." In tracing the pedigree of such novel ideals as tolerance, liberty and social equality from the Enlightenment onward, these erudite, engaging essays throw our century of massive violence into sharp perspective. History Book Club selection.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Five of the essays in this new volume of Berlin's thoughts on the history of ideas are published here for the first time and will certainly add to his status as a clear and trenchant analyst of humanity's cherished hopes and dreams. His study of Giambattista Vico, for example, is noteworthy for its reassessment of Vico's place in the history of thought, and the introductory essay, "The Pursuit of the Ideal," is a brilliant examination of the tenacity with which we guard our most deeply held values. This collection is well suited for colleges and universities with strong humanities and social sciences programs.
- Terry Skeats, Bishop's Univ., Lennoxville, Quebec
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.