The Sense Of Reality: Studies in Ideas and their History - Softcover

"If it were possible to add to a reputation already so considerable, these essays would do it. All the productions of Berlin's long and distinguished career are characterised by urbanity, insight, profound scholarship and witty elegance. These traits are satisfyingly and instructively here present again" (A.C. Grayling Financial Times)

"As with all Berlin's essays in the history of ideas, they exude a generous, sympathetic and large-minded enthusiasm for all sorts of thinkers and all sorts of ideas that make them a continuous pleasure to read" (Alan Ryan Times Literary Supplement)

"Engrossingly readable" (John Gray The Times)

"A superb example of philosophy for the interested layman" (Shusha Guppy Independent)

"This volume is replete with wisdom and insight" (Matthew D’Ancona Sunday Telegraph)

Eight of the nine pieces in The Sense of Reality are published here for the first time. The range is characteristically wide: realism in history; judgement in politics; the special right of philosophers to self-expression; the history of socialism; the nature and impact of Marxism; the radical cultural revolution instigated by romanticism; the Russian notion of artistic commitment; the origins and practice of nationalism. The title essay, starting from the impossibility of recreating a bygone epoch, provides a superb centrepiece.