Against the Current
Essays in the History of Ideas
Published on 9. December 2001
Book
Paperback/Softback
480 pages
978-0-691-09026-9 (ISBN)
Description
In this outstanding collection of essays, Isaiah Berlin, one of the great thinkers of the twentieth century, discusses the importance in the history of thought of dissenters whose ideas still challenge conventional wisdom - among them Machiavelli, Vico, Montesquieu, Herzen, and Sorel. With his unusual powers of imaginative re-creation, Berlin brings to life original minds that swam against the current of their times.
Reviews / Votes
Isaiah Berlin was the most esteemed intellectual figure in the English-speaking world. Against the Current may be the most representative of [his] books. -- Mark Feeney Boston Globe Berlin expounds the ideas of half-forgotten thinkers with luminous clarity and imaginative empathy... exhilarating to read. -- Keith Thomas Observer A most remarkable intellectual achievement. There are few books published in our time which more dazzlingly illuminate some of the most crucial problems of western culture and civilisation. -- Goronwy Rees EncounterMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
New Jersey
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
College/higher education
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Weight
680 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-691-09026-9 (9780691090269)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
New editions
Book
06/2013
2nd Edition
Princeton University Press
€24.00
Shipment within 10-20 days
Persons
Isaiah Berlin was, until his death in 1997, a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. He was renowned as an essayist and as the author of many books, among them Karl Marx, Four Essays on Liberty, Russian Thinkers, The Sense of Reality, The Proper Study of Mankind, and, from Princeton, Concepts and Categories, Personal Impressions, The Crooked Timber of Humanity, The Roots of Romanticism, The Power of Ideas, and Three Critics of the Enlightenment. Henry Hardy, a Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford, is one of Isaiah Berlin's literary trustees. He has edited several other volumes by Berlin and is currently preparing Berlin's letters and remaining unpublished writings for publication.
Content
Author's Note vii Editor's preface ix Note to the Princeton Edition vii Introduction by Roger Hausheer xiii The Counter-Enlightenment 1 The Originality of Machiavelli 25 The Divorce between the Sciences and the Humanities 80 Vico's Concept of Knowledge 111 Vico and the Ideal of the Enlightenment 120 Montesquieu 130 Hume and the Sources of German Anti-Rationalism 162 Herzen and his Memoirs 188 The Life and opinions and Moses Hess 213 Benjamin Disraeli, Karl Marx and the Search for Identity 252 The "Naivete" of verdi 287 Georges Sorel 296 Nationalism: Past Neglect and Present power 333 A Bibliography of Isaiah Berlin 357 Index 399