Name: The Proper Study of Mankind: An Anthology of Essays
Price: 28.52 EUR
Availability: InStock
Author: Isaiah Berlin
ISBN: 9780374527174

portada The Proper Study of Mankind: An Anthology of Essays

The Proper Study of Mankind: An Anthology of Essays

Type

Physical Book

Author

Isaiah Berlin

Illustrated by

Henry Hardy

Roger Hausheer

Publisher

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Year

2000

Language

English

Pages

704

Format

Paperback

Dimensions

20.8 x 14.0 x 5.3 cm

Weight

0.64 kg.

ISBN

0374527172

ISBN13

9780374527174

Edition No.

Synopsis "The Proper Study of Mankind: An Anthology of Essays "

Isaiah Berlin was one of the leading thinkers of our time and one of its finest writers. The Proper Study of Mankind brings together his most celebrated writing: here the reader will find Berlin's famous essay on Tolstoy, The Hedgehog and the Fox; his penetrating portraits of contemporaries from Pasternak and Akhmatova to Churchill and Roosevelt; his essays on liberty and his exposition of pluralism; his defense of philosophy and history against assimilation to scientific method; and his brilliant studies of such intellectual originals as Machiavelli, Vico, and Herder.

Isaiah Berlin

(Author)

View Author's Page

Isaiah Berlin (1909–1997) was an influential British philosopher and thinker of Latvian origin, known for his contributions to political theory and the history of ideas. Born in Riga, Latvia, his family emigrated to England in 1921. He studied at the University of Oxford, where he became a fellow of All Souls College and New College, and also founded Wolfson College. During World War II, he worked as a diplomat in Washington and Moscow. He was president of the British Academy from 1974 to 1978 and received various awards for his intellectual work.

His most famous essay, The Hedgehog and the Fox (1953), interprets Leon Tolstoy's view of history through an Archilochus metaphor: “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.” Berlin classifies thinkers into two types: the "hedgehogs," who structure their worldview around a single central idea, and the "foxes," who have a more scattered and multiple perspective. According to Berlin, Tolstoy embodies both roles: by his talent, a fox; by his convictions, a hedgehog.

This essay has become an essential work for understanding the different approaches to thought and history.

See less