Isaiah Berlin - Enlightening: Letters 1946-1960

People are my landscape, Isaiah Berlin liked to say, and nowhere is the truth of this observation more evident than in his letters. He is a fascinated watcher of human beings in all their variety, and revels in describing them to his many correspondents. His letters combine ironic social comedy and a passionate concern for individual freedom. His interpretation of political events, historical and contemporary, and his views on how life should be lived, are always grounded in the personal, and his fiercest condemnation is reserved for purveyors of grand abstract theories that ignore what people are really like.

This second volume of Berlins letters takes up the story when, after war service in the United States, he returns to life as an Oxford don. Against the background of post-war austerity, the letters chart years of academic frustration and self-doubt, the intellectual explosion when he moves from philosophy to the history of ideas, his growing national fame as a broadcaster and lecturer, the publication of some of his best-known works, his election to a professorship and his reaction to knighthood.

These are the years, too, of momentous developments in his private life: the bachelor dons loss of sexual innocence, the emotional turmoil of his fathers death, his courtship of a married woman and transformation into husband and stepfather. Above all, these revealing letters vividly display Berlins effervescent personality often infuriating, always irresistible.

Sir Isaiah Berlin, O. M., was born in Riga, Latvia, in 1909. He came to England in 1919 and was educated at St Pauls School and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. At Oxford, he was a Fellow of New College (193850), Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory (195767), first President of Wolfson College (196675), a Fellow of All Souls College, and President of the British Academy from 19741978. His achievements as an historian and exponent of ideas earned him the Erasmus, Lippincott, and Agnelli Prizes, and his lifelong defence of civil liberties earned him the Jerusalem Prize. He died in 1997.

ISAIAH BERLIN

LETTERS 19461960

Edited by Henry Hardy and Jennifer Holmes
with the assistance of Serena Moore

Additional research Brigid Allen, James Chappel, Jason Ferrell,

Steffen Gro, Eleonora Paganini

Archival research Michael Hughes

Transcription Betty Colquhoun, Esther Johnson

Leastwise, if a man does anything all through life with a deal of bother, and likewise of some benefit to others, the details of such bother and benefit may as well be known accurately as the contrary.

Edward Lear, letter of c.1866 to Chichester Fortescue (Lord Carlingford), in Lears Nonsense Songs and Stories, 6th ed. (London and New York, 1888), 5

If finance permits they should be given real competent hacks industrious and methodical ladies if possible who could act as research assistants, card indexers etc., to whom no hope of necessary promotion need be held out.

IB to Walter Eytan, April 1951

Also by Isaiah Berlin

*

KARL MARX

THE HEDGEHOG AND THE FOX

THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT

THE FIRST AND THE LAST

Edited by Henry Hardy and Aileen Kelly

RUSSIAN THINKERS

Edited by Henry Hardy

CONCEPTS AND CATEGORIES

AGAINST THE CURRENT

PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS

THE CROOKED TIMBER OF HUMANITY

THE SENSE OF REALITY

THE ROOTS OF ROMANTICISM

THE POWER OF IDEAS

THREE CRITICS OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT

FREEDOM AND ITS BETRAYAL

LIBERTY

THE SOVIET MIND

POLITICAL IDEAS IN THE ROMANTIC AGE

Uniform with this volume

FLOURISHING: LETTERS 19281946

Edited by Henry Hardy and Roger Hausheer

THE PROPER STUDY OF MANKIND

With Beata Polanowska-Sygulska

UNFINISHED DIALOGUE

*

For more information on Isaiah Berlin visit

http://berlin.wolf.ox.ac.uk/

The subject is IB where not otherwise stated

ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT

Caricature by Saxe, Harvard Crimson, 1949

Letter to Marietta Tree, 1949

Letter to Arthur Schlesinger, 1949

Postcard to Avis Bohlen, 1950

Flyer announcing the lecture that became Historical Inevitability, 1953

Diary entry recording proposal of marriage to Aline Halban, 1955

New Yorker hedgehog/fox cartoon by Charles Barsotti, 1998

Hans Ernis cover for The Age of Enlightenment

Letter to Joseph Alsop, 1956

IBs Hebrew letter to Rabbi Isaac Herzog, 1958

Delivery text of Two Concepts of Liberty, 1958

Oxford Pants for Knowledge by David Hawkins, 1960

Auguste Bartholdis statue, Liberty Enlightening the World, 1885

PICTURE SECTION

In the cloisters, New College

Mendel and Marie Berlin

Chaim Weizmann

Vera Weizmann

George Kennan

Oliver Franks

With Harvard colleagues

Aline Halban

Anna Kallin

Maurice Bowra

Stuart Hampshire

Joseph Alsop

Katharine (Kay) and Philip Graham

Edward F. Prichard, Jr

With Ronnie and Marietta Tree

Lowell House, Harvard

Jenifer and Herbert Hart

Nicky Mariano and Bernard Berenson

Clarissa and Anthony Eden

Photographed by Cecil Beaton

With Stuart Hampshire

Lecturing in Jerusalem

Violet Bonham Carter and Tom Driberg

Teddy Kollek

David Cecil

John Sparrow

Crossing the Channel with Aline

Headington House

Morton White

S. N. Behrman

Hamilton Fish Armstrong

Arthur Schlesinger, Jr

Charles E. (Chip) Bohlen

Diana Cooper

Rowland Burdon-Muller

Felix Frankfurter

The Reunion by Leonid Pasternak

Boris Pasternak on the front cover of Time

In the Great Quadrangle, All Souls

Enlightening an audience at the Bath Festival

With Avraham Harman

Aline Berlin with her family

CREDITS

Images from the Isaiah Berlin Papers, Oxford, Bodleian Library, The Isaiah Berlin Literary Trust 2009, are referenced by shelfmark and folio, thus: MSB 123/456 (i.e. MS. Berlin 123, fo. 456). Otherwise credits name as many as are known to the editors of the following: photographer/photographers employer/collection/agent or owner. Inconsistencies in the style and/or positioning of credits are due to requirements imposed by copyright owners.

Illustrations in the text (listed by page)

Saxe cartoon: Harvard Crimson, 23 May 1949, 2; MSB 822/63

Letter to Marietta Tree: Schlesinger Library, Harvard University

Letter to Arthur Schlesinger: Schlesinger Library, Harvard University

Postcard to Avis Bohlen: Schlesinger Library, Harvard University

Flyer announcing History as an Alibi: scanned by the LSE from their LSE/Oakeshott/1/3

Diary entry: MSB 17/49v

, note 4

The Age of Enlightenment: IBs shelf copy, in the possession of Henry Hardy

Letter to Joseph Alsop: LOC

Hebrew letter to Rabbi Isaac Herzog: Rav Isaac Herzog Archive, Heichal Shlomo, Jerusalem

Delivery text of Two Concepts of Liberty: MSB 449/147

Oxford Pants for Knowledge: undated copy of Mesopotamia published in Hilary Term 1960, lent by David Hawkins

Liberty Enlightening the World: public-domain scan from the website of the Library of Congress (Prints & Photographs Online Catalog)

Pictures (listed by Picture No)

Norman Parkinson/Norman Parkinson Archive

unknown/Aline Berlin

unknown/Aline Berlin

Shlomo Ben-Zvi, Rehovot/Yad Chaim Weizmann, Weizmann Archives, Rehovot, Israel