Building

IB was one of the great affirmers of our time, a man to be admired not only for his intellectual achievements but for his loyalty, his humor, his modesty, his delight in the world and the people in it. Building is a wonderful edifice in his honor, meticulously, indeed lovingly, edited and annotated – John Banville * New York Review of Books *Berlin was sui generis. There never was anyone like him before, and there probably will not be anyone like him again… He was, above all, a genuine – as opposed to a stage – liberal, who believed people were entitled to their beliefs and even to their prejudices, and both could be accommodated – DJ Taylor * Independent on Sunday *Consistently interesting and at times strikingly unexpected, these letters show sides of Berlin that have not been seen before – John Gray * Literary Review *Berlin’s achievement was immense, in making ideas entertaining in a culture generally averse to them… One way to read [him] today is to relish the passionate man between the high-flown lines – Lesley Chamberlain * Independent *There are many wonderful sketches. Of, for example, President Kennedy… or Roy Jenkins… and there are damning judgments of many great and good… Dip in and savour a lost world…. For reasons of technology (email and text) and also of intellectual culture the letters of today’s Berlins… will simply not exist for future historians – David Goodhart * Sunday Times (Culture) *Many of us who care about ideas feel a nostalgia for a time when thinkers were taken seriously and when irony was the spice of intellectual life rather than its meat. few exemplify this mythical age better than the 20th-century historian of ideas Isaiah Berlin… These letters often capture his insights with greater concision and sharpness than the originals… there is more here to enlighten and entertain than in the collected works of most of his contemporaries. In their introduction, the editors say: “If this is not one of the best letter-writers of the 20th century, we are ready to eat our respective hats.” Gentlemen, you can leave your hats on. – Julian Baggini * Observer (New Review) *Even more engrossing and entertaining than the previous volumes of Berlin’s correspondence. Pure joy – John Banville * Observer *[It] finds the philosopher deeply embroiled in the great world, one day dining with JFK and the next engaged in trying not to laugh at Igor Stravinsky. A marvellous book, fascinating, irreverent and funny – John Banville * Irish Times *Readers will be enriched, informed, amused – and grateful that Berlin never mastered concision * The Sunday Times *The letters are compelling. There is wit, charm and effortless erudition – Duncan White * Daily Telegraph *

Isaiah Berlin was born in Riga, now capital of Latvia, in 1909. When he was six, his family moved to Russia, and in Petrograd in 1917 Berlin witnessed both Revolutions - Social Democratic and Bolshevik. In 1921 he and his parents emigrated to England, where he was educated at St Paul’s School, London, and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Apart from his war service in New York, Washington, Moscow and Leningrad, he remained at Oxford thereafter - as a Fellow of All Souls, then of New College, as Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory, and as founding President of Wolfson College. He also held the Presidency of the British Academy. His published work includes Karl Marx, Russian Thinkers, Concepts and Categories, Against the Current, Personal Impressions, The Sense of Reality, The Proper Study of Mankind, The Roots of Romanticism, The Power of Ideas, Three Critics of the Enlightenment, Freedom and Its Betrayal, Liberty, The Soviet Mind and Political Ideas in the Romantic Age. As an exponent of the history of ideas he was awarded the Erasmus, Lippincott and Agnelli Prizes; he also received the Jerusalem Prize for his lifelong defence of civil liberties. He died in 1997.

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