Against the Current : Essays in the History of Ideas [Import] [Paperback]

Isaiah Berlin (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press; New Ed edition (1981)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0192830287
• ISBN-13: 978-0192830289
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,158,748 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant!, September 4, 2002

By 

T. Baughman "thmsbaughman" (Massillon, Ohio United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Against the Current: Essays in the History of Ideas (Paperback)

Sir Isaiah Berlin was the greatest exponent of Liberal Pluralism
in the 20th Century. "Against The Current" is probably his best collection of essays. The essays on Verdi and George Sorel are worth the price of the book alone. Do yourself a favor and read this book. You will not regret it.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A core text of modern liberal pluralism, October 29, 1997

By 

[e-mail] (Germany) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Against the Current (Mass Market Paperback)

One of the great, and certainly at least in some quarters most influential, books of historical/ philosophical/ social thinking of the century. An argument for liberal pluralism, not as an abstract theory, but as a pragmatic necessity in the absence of the possibility of theoretical justification. Berlin almost obsessively (except that obsessive is the last word you could imagine applying to Isaiah Berlin) reiterates implicitly, in a collection of, originally independently published, essays on European intellectual history, his ironically simple thesis that the world is complex and contradictory, and not reducible to the terms of simple moral, social or policial ideas. Further, his prose, which - like his thinking - is in the tradition of Hume and Diderot, makes him an unalloyed pleasure to read.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Some publisher: Please reprint this wonderful book!, November 12, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Chicago) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Against the Current: Essays in the History of Ideas (Hardcover)

"Against the Current: Essays in the History of Ideas" has long been out of print and is hard to find in the used market. I wish some publisher would reprint it--I'm sure it would sell well. It was my introduction to this wonderful, careful, rational thinker and his ideas on pluralism, among many other topics. I'm not smart enough to summarize his thought for public consumption; you must read him for yourself. If you are a warm, loving, human being who is interested in how we got to our present intellectual condition, after reading him you will be a convert. Libraries often have "Against the Current," but you can also find great riches in his other books, some of which Amazon.com will be happy to send to you. Put his name in Keyword Search and check out the numerous titles they carry. (No, I'm not a salesman, just a fan.) I can recommend "Crooked Timber of Humanity" as a good start. For a (still) fresh reading of the life of Karl Marx read Berlin's biography of him. Enrich your life; READ ISAIAH BERLIN!!!