Against the Current: Essays in the History of IdeasBerlin's main theme in these essays is the importance in the history of ideas of dissenters whose thinking still challenges conventional wisdom - among them Machiavelli, Vico, Montesquieu, Herzen and Sorel. With his unusual powers of imaginative re-creation, he brings to life original minds that swam against the current of their times, and in the process offers a powerful defence of variety in our visions of life. |
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... Social Democratic and Bolshevik. In 1921 the family emigrated to England, and Berlin was educated at St Paul's School and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Apart from his war service in New York, Washington and Moscow, he remained at ...
... Social Democratic and Bolshevik. In 1921 the family emigrated to England, and Berlin was educated at St Paul's School and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Apart from his war service in New York, Washington and Moscow, he remained at ...
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... social and political thinkers looked back on him as a distinguished predecessor with nothing new to say to them. Yet looking back at him with the accumulated experience of the first half of the twentieth century, Berlin feels more ...
... social and political thinkers looked back on him as a distinguished predecessor with nothing new to say to them. Yet looking back at him with the accumulated experience of the first half of the twentieth century, Berlin feels more ...
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... social formation) with terribly simple purposes and needs, and equally simple conceptions of the ends of life, large in numbers, highly organised and wielding great powers, impose their impoverished outlook on a much more variegated ...
... social formation) with terribly simple purposes and needs, and equally simple conceptions of the ends of life, large in numbers, highly organised and wielding great powers, impose their impoverished outlook on a much more variegated ...
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... social psychologists, theorists of education, sociologists and politicians today. For in Disraeli Berlin sees an early, highly gifted and articulate, and therefore paradigmatic, example of what was later to become increasingly common ...
... social psychologists, theorists of education, sociologists and politicians today. For in Disraeli Berlin sees an early, highly gifted and articulate, and therefore paradigmatic, example of what was later to become increasingly common ...
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... social justice, individual liberty, economic equality, and social harmony. Wherever the achievement of these goods has been most closely approached, it has been, more often than not, the work of men consciously pursuing goals which ...
... social justice, individual liberty, economic equality, and social harmony. Wherever the achievement of these goods has been most closely approached, it has been, more often than not, the work of men consciously pursuing goals which ...
Contents
The Originality of Machiavelli | |
The Divorce between the Sciences and the Humanities | |
Vicos Concept of Knowledge | |
Montesquieu | |
Hume and the Sources of German AntiRationalism | |
Herzen and his Memoirs | |
The Life and Opinions of Moses Hess | |
Benjamin Disraeli Karl Marx and the Search for Identity | |
The Naïveté of Verdi | |
Past Neglect and Present Power | |
Authors Note | |
Index | |
Other editions - View all
Against the Current: Essays in the History of Ideas - Second Edition Isaiah Berlin Limited preview - 2013 |
Against the Current: Essays in the History of Ideas - Second Edition Isaiah Berlin Limited preview - 2013 |
Common terms and phrases
Aileen Kelly Alexander Herzen believed Benjamin Disraeli Berlin central century Christian civilisation common conceived conception consciousness created culture Descartes Disraeli doctrine E. H. Carr empirical ends Enlightenment essays fact faith French Georges Sorel German Giambattista Vico Hamann Hegel Henry Hardy Herder Herzen Hess history of ideas human Hume Hume’s ibid ideal imagination individual intellectual Isaiah Berlin Italian Jewish Jews justice Kant Karl Marx knowledge language laws letter liberal lives London Machiavelli man’s mankind Marx Marx’s Marxist men’s metaphysical methods modern Montesquieu moral Moses Hess myth natural sciences Niccolò Machiavelli one’s organisation original outlook Oxford passionate perhaps philosophical political Prince principles radical rationalist realise reality reason religion repr Review revolution revolutionary Roman Russian scepticism scientific seems sense social socialist society Sorel Spinoza spirit theory thinkers thought tradition trans true truth understand universal values Verdi Vico Vico’s vision Voltaire writings