Isaiah Berlin: A Life

　　以撒‧柏林不僅是當代最傑出，也是取有人情味的自由主義哲學家，他的生活故事是我們這個時代一個生動而富於啟迪的縮影。他與身兼學者、記者、作家三重身分的邁克‧伊格納蒂夫展開了持續十年而內容豐富的一系列會談，其成果便是這部集原創性、完整性和權威性於一身的柏林傳記。

　　柏林的生活（1909-1997）由俄羅斯、猶太和不列顛三大民族傳統塑造而成，並為本世紀各種最強大的潮流所裏挾。他出生於拉脫維亞的里嘉（當時仍屬於俄羅斯帝國），1917年柏林一家即在大革命發生的第一現場聖彼得堡，親歷兩場革命的震撼。十一歲時舉家遷往英國，憑一種善於適應環境的天賦，他成為萬靈學院有史以來第一個猶太學生。二十世紀三○年代末，萬靈學院柏林的宿舍裡發生了許多意義重大的思想交鋒，現代分析哲學即由此濫觴。

　　二次大戰後，他在牛津大學開始從事思想史和十九世紀俄國思想的宏大研究，並於英國廣播公司（BBC）發表演講，且有一系列開拓性的講座，晚年又創建沃爾夫森學院，並出任第一任院長。

　　柏林的學術身分，主要建立在思想史著作上。這些著作對於人類在精神世界裏的活動與掙扎，有極其深刻的理解與刻劃。

　　本傳記利用大量未曾發表的書簡資料，充滿了柏林本人的才智，邁克‧伊格納蒂夫的生花妙筆為我們揭示了柏林的各種內心衝突，以及他在追求幸福方面的天賦。

　　本書展示了對一位偉人無與倫比的洞察，妙趣橫生，既富有感染力又不乏深刻的思想。

　　本文節取自立緒出版《他鄉 : 以撒．柏林傳》

　　Isaiah Berlin refused to write an autobiography, but he agreed to talk about himself - and so for ten years, he allowed Michael Ignatieff to interview him. 

　　Isaiah Berlin (1909-97) was one of the greatest and most humane of modern philosophers; historian of the Russian intellgentisia biographer of Marx, pioneering scholar of the Romantic movement and defender of the liberal idea of freedom. His own life was caught up in the most powerful currents of the century. The son of a Riga timber merchant, he witnessed the Russian Revolution, was plunged into suburban school life and the ferment of 1930s Oxford; he became part of the British intellectual establishment During the war, he as at the heart of Anglo-American diplomacy in Washington; afterwards in Moscow he saw the grim despair of Stalinism. The book is full of memorable meetings - with Virginia Woolf and Sigmund Freud, with Churchill, with Boris Pasternak and Anna Akhmatova. Yet Ignatieff is not afraid to delve into Berlin's conflicts: his jewish idealism, his deep aspirations. This is a work of great subtelty and penetration, exhilarating and intimate, powerful and profound.

　　'A work of literature and an eloquent portrait...an explanation of this most remarkable twentieth-century figure...Though Berlin will be the subject of many future studies, one cannot imagine anyone feeling the need to improve on this biography' Observer

　　One of the greatest of modern philosophers, Isaiah Berlin was swept up in the most powerful currents of the twentieth century. In this extraordinary biography, Michael Ignatieff traces Berlin's childhood in Latvia, amid the terror of the Revolution, his exile in England and years as a member of the British intellectual establishment, and his career at the heart of British diplomacy in airtime Washington and post-war Moscow. The story echoes with Berlin's zestful recollections; from his comic meetings with Virginia Woolf, Wittgenstein and Churchill to his encounters with Pasternak and Anna Akhmatova.

　　'Enthralling...More than an authorised biography...An affectionate and admiring, but none the less independently-minded portrait...A serious book, but also a vivid, lively and uplifting one' 

　　Evening Standard

　　'Reading Ignatieff's Isaiah Berlin, you feel you are understanding not only Isaiah Berlin, but the history...I do not see how there could be a more insightful, more erudite, biography of this remarkable man' Doris Lessing, Times Literary Supplement

　　'A rare gem of a book...It will add a new dimension to the afterlife of the philosopher' Sunday Times

　　'Brings off the near-impossible - a lifelike portrait of a man who was loved by his friends not for what he wrote, but what he said' Humphrey Carpenter, Sunday Times, Books of the Year