Against the Current:
Essays in the History of Ideas
Isaiah Berlin
Edited by Henry Hardy
With an introduction by Roger Hausheer

Paper | 2001 | $28.95 / £16.95
300 pp. | 6 x 9

Shopping Cart | Reviews | Table of Contents

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:

"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

"A historian of ideas, [Berlin] has no equal; and what he has to say is expressed in prose of exceptional lucidity and grace."--Anthony Storr, Independent on Sunday

"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, Encounter

Endorsement:

'This is an exceptional volume by a remarkable intellectual. Berlin's essays are wide-ranging, rich, deeply learned, and elegant."--Mitchell Cohen, City University of New York

Table of Contents:

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

Other Princeton books by Isaiah Berlin:

• Concepts and Categories: Philosophical Essays.
• The Crooked Timber of Humanity: Chapters in the History of Ideas.
• Freedom and Its Betrayal: Six Enemies of Human Liberty.
• Personal Impressions.
• Political Ideas in the Romantic Age: Their Rise and Influence on Modern Thought.
• The Power of Ideas.
• The Roots of Romanticism.
• Three Critics of the Enlightenment: Vico, Hamann, Herder.

Other Princeton books by Henry Hardy:

• Concepts and Categories: Philosophical Essays.
• The Crooked Timber of Humanity: Chapters in the History of Ideas.
• Freedom and Its Betrayal: Six Enemies of Human Liberty.
• Personal Impressions.
• Political Ideas in the Romantic Age: Their Rise and Influence on Modern Thought.
• The Power of Ideas.
• The Roots of Romanticism.
• Three Critics of the Enlightenment: Vico, Hamann, Herder.

Link:

• Isaiah Berlin Virtual Library

Subject Areas:

• Philosophy
• Political Philosophy
• European History

Hardcover published by Viking in 1980

Paper: Not for sale in the Commonwealth (except Canada) and the European Union

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For customers in the U.S., Canada, Latin America, Asia, and Australia
Paper: $28.95 ISBN13: 978-0-691-09026-9

For customers in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and India
Paper: £16.95 ISBN13: 978-0-691-09026-9

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File created: 7/1/2008

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