Sense of Reality Studies in Ideas and Their History
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Biographical note
Isaiah Berlin (1909-1997) was one of the leading intellectual historians of the twentieth century and the founding president of Wolfson College, University of Oxford. His many books include The Hedgehog and the Fox and The Crooked Timber of Humanity (both Princeton)."Berlin may be erudite, but he is not academic. He addresses his essays to the general reader, and he speaks with such infectious energy that he sweeps us up and carries us with him into territory that had seemed inaccessible. He becomes everyman's guide to everything exciting in the history of ideas."<b>--Robert Darnton, <i>New York Review of Books</i></b><br />"Berlin offers a particularly important vision of human experience, and in particular, of political conduct.... Reading Berlin is like being made a party to a wonderful conversation, on equal terms. I know of no other twentieth-century thinker who conveys this sense.<i> The Sense of Reality</i> ... is a wonderful book."<b> Jonathan Allen, <i>South African Journal of Philosophy</i></b>
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year
"For anyone wanting to understand the twists and turns of the history of ideas, this book will be indispensable." John Gray, New York Times Book Review
The Sense of Reality was the last new collection of essays published by Isaiah Berlin in his lifetime. All informed by Berlin's lifelong fascination with the history of ideas, these engaging studies range widely: the subjects explored include realism in history; judgment in politics; the history of socialism; the nature and impact of Marxism; the radical cultural revolution instigated by the Romantics; Russian notions of artistic commitment; and the origins and practice of nationalism. The title essay, taking its cue from the impossibility of recreating a bygone epoch, is a superb centerpiece. Now with a new foreword by Timothy Snyder and a new appendix comprising a previously unpublished essay on the great Russian critic Vissarion Belinksy and a previously uncollected lecture on utopianism, The Sense of Reality is a rich and illuminating collection from one of the most seductive writers and thinkers of the twentieth century.