The essays collected in this new volume reveal Isaiah Berlin at his most lucid and accessible. He was constitutionally incapable of writing with the opacity of the specialist, but these shorter, more introductory pieces provide the perfect starting-point for the reader new to his work. Those who are already familiar with his writing will also be grateful for this further addition to his collected essays. The connecting theme of these essays, as in the case of earlier volumes, is the crucial social and political role - past, present and future - of ideas, and of their progenitors. A rich variety of subject-matters is represented - from philosophy to education, from Russia to Israel, from Marxism to romanticism - so that the truth of Heine's warning is exemplified on a broad front.It is a warning that Berlin often referred to, and provides an answer to those who ask, as from time to time they do, why intellectual history matters. Among the contributions are "My Intellectual Path," Berlin's last essay, a retrospective autobiographical survey of his main preoccupations; and "Jewish Slavery and Emancipation," the classic statement of his Zionist views, long unavailable in print. His other subjects include the Enlightenment, Giambattista Vico, Vissarion Belinsky, Alexander Herzen, G.V. Plekhanov, the Russian intelligentsia, the idea of liberty, political realism, nationalism, and historicism.The book exhibits the full range of his enormously wide expertise and demonstrates the striking and enormously engaging individuality, as well as the power, of his own ideas. 'Over a hundred years ago, the German poet Heine warned the French not to underestimate the power of ideas: philosophical concepts nurtured in the stillness of a professor's study could destroy a civilization' - Isaiah Berlin, Two Concepts of Liberty, 1958.

以賽亞·伯林爵士（Sir Isaiah Berlin，1909—1997）

英國哲學傢、觀念史學傢、20世紀著名自由主義知識分子。生於俄國猶太傢庭，童年目睹俄國革命，1921年隨父母前往英國。1928年進入牛津大學攻讀哲學，1939年藉撰寫《卡爾·馬剋思》的契機轉嚮觀念史研究。1957年就職牛津大學社會與政治理論教授，發錶具有開創性的“兩種自由概念”演說，同年獲封爵士。參與創辦牛津大學沃爾夫森學院並齣任首任院長。作為傑齣的觀念史學傢和學科主要奠基人，先後被授予耶路撒冷文學奬和伊拉斯謨奬。