Customer Reviews

Isaiah Berlin

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For some reason, the other reviews, with one exception, are not reviews of John Gray's, "Isaiah Berlin;" they are instead reviews of a compilation of Berlin's writing, "Four Essays on Liberty." I don't know how this happened, but I will review Gray's book, ISBN 0691026351.

Gray presents a compact (168 pages) intellectual biography of Berlin, an affectionate, fair, yet critical survey of his thought and works. It is an excellent resource, and it provides the reader with the background and context necessary for understanding Berlin's rather voluminous and disparate writings. This is especially valuable, as Berlin was a loquacious and sometimes untidy writer, circling around, over, and back through his ideas in way that some may find confusing more than clarifying. In fact, his key ideas were not that many, and not that difficult to grasp, when set out as carefully as Gray sets them out.

If you want more narrative of Berlin's very interesting life, you should consider Michael Ignatieff's, "Isaiah Berlin: A Life," which is also superbly done. Gray concentrates on Berlin's ideas, summarizing the whole of his life in one paragraph in the Introduction.

This book came out in the mid 1990s right when the biggest debates were dealing with cultural diversity and affirmative action. No book not even this one can capture the essence and writings of Berlin's writing that expanded nearly six decades yet it provides a fresh analysis of his ideas to those who aren't familiar with the 'history of ideas' and unleashed in the public debate about what to do about the remnants of liberalism and multiculturalism in this day and age. I recommend buying this highly.