Author : Isaiah Berlin
Publisher : Weidenfeld & Nicolson
ISBN 13 : 9781474619707
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (197 download)
Book Synopsis The Hedgehog and the Fox by : Isaiah Berlin
Download or read book The Hedgehog and the Fox written by Isaiah Berlin and published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. This book was released on 2022-04-28 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Brilliant. Searching and profound' E.H. Carr, Times Literary Supplement 'When reading Isaiah Berlin we breathe an altogether different air' New York Review of Books 'Beautifully written' W. H. Auden, New Yorker 'Ingenious. Exactly what good critical writing should be' Max Beloff, Guardian The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing. For Isaiah Berlin, there is a fundamental distinction in mankind: those who are fascinated by the infinite variety of things - foxes - and those who relate everything to a central all-embracing system - hedgehogs. It can be applied to the greatest creative minds: Dante, Ibsen and Proust are hedgehogs, while Shakespeare, Aristotle and Joyce are foxes. Yet when Berlin reaches the case of Tolstoy, he finds a fox by nature, but a hedgehog by conviction; a duality which holds the key to understanding Tolstoy's work, illuminating a paradox of his philosophy of history and showing why he was frequently misunderstood by his contemporaries and critics. With a foreword by Michael Ignatieff A W&N Essential