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Russian Thinkers (Penguin Classics)
by: Isaiah Berlin

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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 947.07
EAN: 9780141442204
ISBN: 0141442204
Label: Penguin Classics
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 448
Publication Date: March 25, 2008
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Sales Rank: 262980
Studio: Penguin Classics

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Editorial Review:

Product Description:
Required reading for fans of Tom Stoppard’s The Coast of Utopia—the landmark investigation into Russian history and thought

Few, if any, English-language critics have written as perceptively as Isaiah Berlin about Russian thought and culture. Russian Thinkers is his unique meditation on the impact that Russia’s outstanding writers and philosophers had on its culture. In addition to Tolstoy’s philosophy of history, which he addresses in his most famous essay, “The Hedgehog and the Fox,” Berlin considers the social and political circumstances that produced such men as Herzen, Bakunin, Turgenev, Belinsky, and others of the Russian intelligentsia, who made up, as Berlin describes, “the largest single Russian contribution to social change in the world.”

Amazon.com Review:
Among the seven essays collected in Russian Thinkers is perhaps Isaiah Berlin's most famous work, 'The Hedgehog and the Fox,' which begins with an ancient Greek proverb ('The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing') before taking on Leo Tolstoy's philosophy of history, showing how Tolstoy 'was by nature a fox, but believed in being a hedgehog.' The other half dozen pieces examine other Russian writers and philosophers, including Alexander Herzen, Ivan Turgenev, and Mikhail Bakunin--although the latter, Berlin says, 'is not a serious thinker. There are no coherent ideas to be extracted from his writings of any period, only fire and imagination, violence and poetry, and an ungovernable desire for strong sensations.' Few, if any, English-language critics have written as perceptibly about Russian thought and culture as the Latvian-born Berlin, and the history covered in Russian Thinkers is a unique elaboration of Berlin's theses concerning the impact of ideas upon culture.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- There's nobody quite like Isaiah Berlin
Like every single book of Berlin's I ever read, starting with The Hedgehog and the Fox: An Essay on Tolstoy's View of History, I enjoyed this one immensely. There is nobody quite like Berlin. yes, his sentences seem never to end, but there is so much insight and quiet passion packed into every one of them that he really makes the reader feel he or she understands how these isolated desperate and frustrated Russians thought and why.

Rating:

- THINKING ABOUT "RUSSIAN THINKERS"
This is a very important book in my opinion, because it analyzes certain utopian ideas that produced chaos during the 20th Century, but remain popular today despite their horrible track record. Basically, this outstanding work of historical scholarship is about a group of Russian intellectuals who believed if they rid Russia of the monarchy, capitalism, and Russian Orthodox Church, life would be wonderful. So the Tsar and his family were killed, capitalism was wiped out, and the Russian Orthodox Church was suppressed. As we all know, paradise didn't ensue. Instead Russia ended up with the Gulag Archipeligo. How could so many brilliant intellectuals be wrong? Well, perhaps brilliant intellectuals aren't as brilliant as they imagine. If you want to understand the modern world, and the pitfalls of seemingly wonderful utopian ideas, this is the book to read. The author is a highly-respected historian, not a journalist ... Read More

Rating:

- Mind-blowing!
All essays in this collection are remarkable but 'The Hedgehog and the Fox' is one of those essays that will take you on a trip to the relativity of truth and have you question both the physical and metaphysical through Berlin's eyes. There are many philosophical angles from which one can interpret Berlin's analysis of the Russian intelligentsia, the one that stands out the most is the question that defined nineteenth Russia, as well as Europe:'What is to be done?'

There are two strains of thought in the Russian intellectual circles of this time, the Slavophil movement and the Western-oriented intellectuals. Berlin notes that these were not organized political camps engaged in constant debates of any sort (as there was no political movement to speak of at this time in Russia) but rather unsystematic frames of thinking with which Russian intellectuals of the time identified.

The advocates of the ... Read More

Rating:

- Berlin at his best - the true fox
This study of Russian thinkers is profound and moving. Isaiah Berlin was capable of writing about 'ideas' and their ' development' in a constantly fascinating way. His most well- known essay ' The Hedgehog and the Fox' is in this volume and it seems that Berlin himself was one of those who knew many things and wanted to know many things. His political ideas also took the shape of recognizing conflicting value systems as having validity even when those came from within a single person. Here he writes about the great Russian social and political thinkers Tolstoy, Herzen,Belinsky , Bakunin , Turgenev with characteristic insight, irony and sympathy.
This is a volume anyone interested in the history of ideas should not miss.

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