Description
Book SynopsisArguing that the political ideas of 1760-1830 are still largely ours, down to the language and metaphors they are expressed in, this book provides an account of some of the era's influential thinkers, including Rousseau, Fichte, and Hegel.
Trade Review"Indispensable for anyone interested in the history of ideas and the development of liberal thought, it contains most of the central themes of Berlin's work, together with some of its recurring ambiguities."--John Gray, New York Review of Books "A fine introduction to Berlin's thought, and a major addition to the corpus of his work."--Anthony Grayling, Literary Review "In this volume, we have one of the most central sources for much of Berlin's thought. What makes Berlin such a compelling historian, and one of the very few of whom it will always be said that he is a pleasure to read, was the way that he got under the skin of people whose opinions he found, after considered thought, abhorrent. His ideas are still worth debating today, and for the foreseeable future."--Nicholas Lezard, Guardian "An event of major importance... Hitherto, students of Berlin have been like explorers searching for the source of the Nile, but with only a network of streams to go by, not a single river; now they can stand on the shores of their very own Lake Victoria, gazing at the mighty reservoir itself."--Noel Malcolm, Sunday Telegraph "[Political Ideas in the Romantic Age] contains, in embryo, the main ideas that were to dominate [Berlin's] thought."--Raymond Carr, Spectator "An absorbing and impressive new book ... [that] says that we still live off the intellectual capital produced by the great thinkers of the romantic age, roughly 1760 to 1830. We think as they thought. We speak as they spoke."--Robert Fulford, National Post "Berlin's text is substantially rich and essential for understanding the foundations of his early intellectual encounters with the minds of the Enlightenment and the Romantic age."--Choice "[This book] is worth a look for anyone interested in a kind of original formulation of Berlin's ideas, but it also provides a new path into a great mind for those who are not yet familiar with him."--Brandon Turner, Perspectives on Political Science "Those already interested in Berlin's scholarship will find the origins here of his broader contributions to the 'history of ideas' while at his intellectual peak."--Ann Frank Wake, Historian "At a time when the recrudescence of romantic themes has accompanied numerous new political foundings in the post-Soviet era, and in the turmoil and realignments in the Middle East and Africa, there is a refreshing clarity in this work, and a robust comprehensiveness to his commentary on romanticist ideas--romanticism insinuated exalted, but usually volatile, new ideas in old containers. Its beguiling grandeur obscured its dangers. Berlin offers incisively critical assessments of its leading thinkers."--Peter Emberley, International Political Science Review
Table of ContentsForeword by William A. Galston xi Abbreviations and Conventions xxiii Editor's Preface xxv Isaiah Berlin's Political Ideas: From the Twentieth Century to the Romantic Age by Joshua L. Cherniss xliii POLITICAL IDEAS IN THE ROMANTIC AGE 1 Prologue 1 1 Politics as a Descriptive Science 21 2 The Idea of Freedom 112 3 Two Concepts of Freedom: Romantic and Liberal 195 4 The March of History 261 Appendix: Subjective versus Objective Ethics 325 Summaries of the Flexner Lectures 333 Note from the Editor to the Author 349 Appendix to the Second Edition The Concise 'Two Concepts of Liberty' 355 Index 389
