Isaiah Berlin: A LifeIsaiah Berlin was witness to a century. Born in Riga in the twilight of the Czarist empire, he lived long enough to see the Soviet state collapse. Biographer of Marx, scholar of the Romantic movement, and defer of the liberal idea of freedom against Soviet tyranny, Berlin was the presiding judge of intellectual life on both sides of the Atlantic. When he died in 1997, he was hailed as the most important liberal philosopher of his time. But Berlin's life was not only a life of the mind. From Albert Einstein to Virginia Woolf, Winston Churchill to Anna Akhmatova, his circle of friends constitutes a veritable who's who of twentieth-century art, politics, and philosophy. In this definitive work, the result of a remarkable ten-year collaboration between biographer and subject, Michael Ignatieff charts the emergence of a unique temperament and a singular vision. |
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A.J. Ayer Aline Berlin American Anna Akhmatova Arabs asked Ayer became began believed Berlin Archive British Burgess Chaim Weizmann Churchill culture dinner embassy English essay feeling Felix Frankfurter felt Foreign Office freedom friends German Gurion Halban Halifax Headington House Henry Hardy human IB to Marion idea intellectual Isaiah Berlin Isaiah remembered Israel Jean Floud Jewish Jews Joe Alsop knew lecture letter liberal liberty lived logical positivism London looked Mandelstam Marx Maurice Bowra Mendel Berlin MI/IV IB mind moral Moscow never Noel Annan Oxford Palestine Pasternak Petrograd philosophy poet political President PRO/FO realised replied returned Riga Romantic Russian sceptical seemed sense Shiela Grant Duff social Souls Soviet St Paul's Stalin Stephen Spender story Stuart Hampshire summer T.S. Eliot talk thought timber told took Trott Turgenev undated undergraduate Washington Weizmann Wolfson College words write wrote York young Zionist