Isaiah Berlin (1909–1997)
Author of Karl Marx: His Life and Environment
About the Author
Philosopher, political theorist, and essayist, Isaiah Berlin was born in 1909 to Russian-speaking Jewish parents in Latvia. Reared in Latvia and later in Russia, Berlin developed a strong Russian-Jewish identity, having witnessed both the Social-Democratic and the Bolshevik Revolutions. At the age show more of 12, Berlin moved with his family to England, where he attended prep school and then St. Paul's. In 1928, he went up as a scholar to Corpus Christi College in Oxford. After an unsuccessful attempt at the Manchester Guardian, Berlin was offered a position as lecturer in philosophy at New College. Almost immediately, he was elected to a fellowship at All Souls. During this time at All Souls, Berlin wrote his brilliant biographical study of Marx, titled Karl Marx: His Life and Environment (1939), for the Home University Library. Berlin continued to teach through early World War II, and was then sent to New York by the Ministry of Information, and subsequently to the Foreign Office in Washington, D.C. It was during these years that he drafted several fine works regarding the changing political mood of the United States, collected in Washington Despatches 1941-1945 (1981). By the end of the war, Berlin had shifted his focus from philosophy to the history of ideas, and in 1950 he returned to All Souls. In 1957, he was elected to the Chichele Chair of Social and Political Theory, delivering his influential and best-known inaugural lecture, Two Concepts of Liberty. Some of his works include Liberty, The Soviet Mind: Russian Culture under Communism, Flourishing: Selected Letters 1928 - 1946, Political Ideas in the Romantic Age: Their Rise and Influence on Modern Thought, and Unfinished Dialogue, Prometheus. Berlin died in Oxford on November 5, 1997. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: Photo of Isaiah Berlin by Mats Lund
Series
Works by Isaiah Berlin
Selected writings 6 copies
Montesquieu 1 copy
Vico's Concept of Knowledge 1 copy
all 1 copy
Tolstoy and enlightenment 1 copy
Associated Works
Roots of Revolution: A History of the Populist and Socialist Movements in Nineteenth Century Russia (1966) — Introduction, some editions — 139 copies
The Mind of the European Romantics: An Essay in Cultural History (1966) — Preface, some editions — 47 copies
The Company They Kept, Volume Two: Writers on Unforgettable Friendships (2011) — Contributor — 21 copies
History Vol. L No. 169 June 1965 (The Journal of the Historical Association) (1965) — Contributor — 2 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Berlin, Isaiah
- Birthdate
- 1909-06-06
- Date of death
- 1997-11-05
- Burial location
- Wolvercote Cemetery, Oxford, England, UK
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- Russia
UK (naturalized) - Birthplace
- Riga, Russian Empire (now Latvia)
- Place of death
- Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, UK
- Places of residence
- St. Petersburg, Russia
London, England, UK
Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, UK - Education
- St Paul's School
Corpus Christi College, University of Oxford (BA|1928 -- Classics|BA|1929 -- PPE|MA|1935) - Occupations
- philosopher
political theorist
historian of ideas
essayist
lecturer - Relationships
- Morley, Hilda (cousin)
- Organizations
- New College, Oxford University
All Souls College, Oxford University
Wolfson College, Oxford University - Awards and honors
- Jerusalem Prize (1979)
Knight Bachelor (1957)
Commander, Order of the British Empire (1946)
Order of Merit (1971)
Fellow, British Academy (1957)
American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1959) (show all 11)
Erasmus Prize (1983)
Agnelli Prize (1987)
John Locke Prize in Mental Philosophy (1931)
American Academy of Arts and Letters (Foreign Honorary ∙ Literature ∙ 1966)
American Philosophical Society (1975) - Short biography
- Isaiah Berlin was a renowned political philosopher and historian of ideas, and is widely regarded as one of the leading liberal thinkers of the 20th century.
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Statistics
- Works
- 63
- Also by
- 17
- Members
- 8,024
- Popularity
- #3,020
- Rating
- 3.8
- Reviews
- 86
- ISBNs
- 355
- Languages
- 24
- Favorited
- 27