{"product_id":"against-the-current-essays-in-the-history-of-ideas-second-edition-9780691156101","title":"Against the Current: Essays in the History of Ideas - Second Edition","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn this outstanding collection of essays, Isaiah Berlin, one of the great thinkers of the twentieth century, discusses the importance of dissenters in the history of ideas--among them Machiavelli, Vico, Montesquieu, Herzen, and Sorel. With his unusual powers of imaginative re-creation, Berlin brings to life original minds that swam against the current of their times--and still challenge conventional wisdom. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e In a new foreword to this corrected edition, which also includes a new appendix of letters in which Berlin discusses and further illuminates some of its topics, noted essayist Mark Lilla argues that Berlin's decision to give up a philosophy fellowship and become a historian of ideas represented not an abandonment of philosophy but a decision to do philosophy by other, perhaps better, means. \"His instinct told him,\" Lilla writes, \"that you learn more about an idea as an idea when you know something about its genesis and understand why certain people found it compelling and were spurred to action by it.\" This collection of fascinating intellectual portraits is a rich demonstration of that belief.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eIsaiah Berlin\u003c\/b\u003e was a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. He was renowned as an essayist and as the author of many books, among them \u003ci\u003eKarl Marx, Four Essays on Liberty, Russian Thinkers, The Sense of Reality, The Proper Study of Mankind\u003c\/i\u003e, and, from Princeton, \u003ci\u003eConcepts and Categories\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003ePersonal Impressions\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Crooked Timber of Humanity\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Hedgehog and the Fox\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Roots of Romanticism\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Power of Ideas\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThree Critics of the Enlightenment\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003cb\u003eHenry Hardy\u003c\/b\u003e, a Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford, is one of Isaiah Berlin's literary trustees. He has edited several other volumes by Berlin and is currently preparing Berlin's letters and remaining unpublished writings for publication.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Princeton University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50662215745810,"sku":"9780691156101","price":17.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_75edf9bd-01c0-4f03-ae7a-e8e931e9ed64.jpg?v=1733516889","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/against-the-current-essays-in-the-history-of-ideas-second-edition-9780691156101","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}