- Published: 7 September 2017
- ISBN: 9781473555396
- Imprint: Vintage Digital
- Format: EBook
- Pages: 704
Affirming
Letters 1975-1997
- Published: 7 September 2017
- ISBN: 9781473555396
- Imprint: Vintage Digital
- Format: EBook
- Pages: 704
Modest, polite and beautifully written, these letters can be viewed as open-ended conversations with kindred spirits. They are also an important attempt to document the history of the late 20th century.
Prospect
Affirming is an excellent source for the understanding of Berlin's thought in various contexts. But the letters also show Berlin's capacity for friendship, his sympathetic understanding of characters and viewpoints... At the risk of solecism, Icn bin ein Berliner
Brendan McLaughlin, Oldie
One way of reading this richly absorbing collection is as a running commentary on the closing decades of the 20th century by one of its most civilised and penetrating minds. The most unexpected letters, though, are some long and detailed defences of his own ideas
John Gray, Literary Review
The great magus of 20th-century liberalism
Matthew d'Ancona, Guardian
Isaiah Berlin is considered one of the letter-writers of the 20th century... those who give into temptation to flick through will be infinitely rewarded
Oxford Times
Berlin, at his best, reminding us that he was one of the great liberal thinkers of the postwar period
David Herman, New Statesman
One of the great thinkers of the age. Anyone seeking to understand the 20th century should acquire this volume, and its three predecessors. They will be both stimulated and enlightened
Vernon Bogdanor, five stars, Daily Telegraph
Starbursts of thought [...] texts full of gaiety, passion and temperance, which insistently resist the rampaging squaddies of mindless populism
Richard Davenport-Hines, The Times Literary Supplement
The fourth in the grand series of Isaiah Berlin’s correspondence [...] keeps up the flow of high cultural commentary and gossip
Jewish Chronicle
This fourth and final volume of Berlin's letters, admirably edited by Henry Hardy and Mark Pottle, brings vividly back to life one of the most wise, witty and generous of men
Philip Ziegler, Spectator
Affirming: Letters 1975–1997, edited, superbly, by Henry Hardy and Mark Pottle, is a joy only slightly dulled by the knowledge that it is the final volume of Isaiah Berlin’s wise, witty and never less than entertaining correspondence.
John Banville, Guardian, Best Books of 2015
Isaiah Berlin’s Affirming: Letters 1975-1997 ... contains some wonderful letters and a huge dollop of Berlin’s capacious mind as well as his fondness for gossip.
Justin Cartwright, Guardian, Best Books of 2015
Sparkles with brilliance and generosity
Jon M. Sweeney, The Tablet
A triumphant conclusion [to] one of the most remarkable literary projects of our time ... amusing, compelling and illuminating ... Berlin’s Letters stand as a monument to European, Jewish, liberal civilisation in what may prove to be the last century of its recognisable flourishing
S. J. D. Green, Standpoint
[Affirming] brings together the vividly written, wide-ranging and penetrating correspondence of one of the great liberal humanist minds of the 20th century
R. C. Richardson, Times Higher Education, Books of 2015
One of the greatest pleasures of last year was polishing off the fourth and last volume of Isaiah Berlin's letters … He consistently advanced two beliefs which should be born in mind in these troubled times. The first was an abhorrence of all-explaining systems of belief [...] the second is that good and desirable ends - freedom and equality, justice and security - are all too often incompatible, as a result of which compromises must be made ... He was a wise old bird and, if his letters are anything to go by, very lovable as well.
Jeremy Lewis, The Oldie
Meticulously edited and footnoted.
Robert Fulford, National Post