Liberty: Incorporating Four Essays on Liberty

Book Description
Liberty is a revised and expanded edition of the book that Isaiah Berlin regarded as his most important--Four Essays on Liberty, a standard text of liberalism, constantly in demand and constantly discussed since it was first published in 1969. Writing in Harper's, Irving Howe described it as "an exhilarating performance--this, one tells oneself, is what the life of the mind can be." Berlin's editor Henry Hardy has revised the text, incorporating a fifth essay that Berlin himself had wanted to include. He has also added further pieces that bear on the same topic, so that Berlin's principal statements on liberty are at last available together in one volume. Finally, in an extended preface and in appendices drawn from Berlin's unpublished writings, he exhibits some of the biographical sources of Berlin's lifelong preoccupation with liberalism. These additions help us to grasp the nature of Berlin's "inner citadel," as he called it--the core of personal conviction from which some of his most influential writing sprung.


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"Liberty is a revised and expanded edition of a modern classic of liberalism, Four Essays On Liberty, regarded by Isaiah Berlin as his most important book, and constantly discussed since its publication in 1969. Irving Howe described it in Harper's as 'an exhilarating performance - this, one tells oneself, is what the life of the mind can be'." Berlin's editor Henry Hardy has told the story of the book's genesis, revised the text, identified sources, incorporated a fifth essay that Berlin had wanted to include, and added three further pieces, so that Berlin's principal statements on liberty are now gathered together. Three appendices drawn from Berlin's unpublished papers help us to understand the core of personal conviction from which his writings sprang. A guide by Ian Harris to the huge literature stimulated by Berlin's ideas completes the volume.


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