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The Crooked Timber of Humanity: Chapters in the History of Ideas
"Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made."--Immanuel Kant
Isaiah Berlin was one of the most important philosophers of the twentieth century--an activist of the intellect who marshaled vast erudition and eloquence in defense of the endangered values of individual liberty and moral and political pluralism. In the "Crooked Timber of Humanity" he...more
Isaiah Berlin was one of the most important philosophers of the twentieth century--an activist of the intellect who marshaled vast erudition and eloquence in defense of the endangered values of individual liberty and moral and political pluralism. In the "Crooked Timber of Humanity" he...more
Paperback
Published
September 4th 2003
by Pimlico
(first published 1959)
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May 19, 2008
Jonathan
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Shane, Lindsey
Shelves:
assigned-to-shane,
contemporary-philosophy
"From the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made." -- Immanuel Kant
Isaiah Berlin sees human life as necessarily tragic, not because of human depravity in a Christian sense but because of the incompatibility of human goods. Humans will never be able to attain both perfect liberty and perfect equality, for example; they must make a difficult choice between them or seek only a partial measure of each. ("Total liberty for wolves is death to the lambs," in Berlin's famous formulat...more
Isaiah Berlin sees human life as necessarily tragic, not because of human depravity in a Christian sense but because of the incompatibility of human goods. Humans will never be able to attain both perfect liberty and perfect equality, for example; they must make a difficult choice between them or seek only a partial measure of each. ("Total liberty for wolves is death to the lambs," in Berlin's famous formulat...more
I’ve been intrigued by Isaiah Berlin ever since I found out that he was the author of the seminal essay on Tolstoy, “The Hedgehog and the Fox.” His collection of later essays, The Crooked Timber of History, was equally compelling. The first two essays, “The Pursuit of the Ideal” and “The Decline of Utopian Ideas in the West,” were interesting in the discussion of the inevitable failure of utopian movements like communism and fascism due to the fact that ideals differ from culture to culture. Thi...more
Dec 07, 2009
Matthew
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Novice Philosophers
Recommended to Matthew by:
My Father
In this compelling examination of the historical roots of modern thinking Isaiah Berlin occupies himself with the clash of ideas between French Enlightenment thinkers on one side and a small group of irrationalist reactionaries on the other. He primarily focuses on Giambattista Vico, Johann Gottfried Herder, Joseph de Maistre and Johann Georg Hamann and discusses how their reaction against the enlightenment concept of universal truth led to the romantic movement and ultimately to fascism. Berlin...more
This is one of those books that when you are done reading it, you say to yourself "If only I could remember every bit of knowledge & wisdom in that book, my life would be so enriched". Of course you can't.
Hopefully I will take the time during the next few years to dip into this book again and try writing an essay or a real review or a summary of some type. If I do, the first of Berlin's essays that I will revisit are "Alleged Relativism in Eighteenth-Century European Thought" and "The Apothe...more
Hopefully I will take the time during the next few years to dip into this book again and try writing an essay or a real review or a summary of some type. If I do, the first of Berlin's essays that I will revisit are "Alleged Relativism in Eighteenth-Century European Thought" and "The Apothe...more
A collection of essays from the renown historian Isaiah Berlin, who essentially offers an entirely reasonable and nuanced argument for abandoning Platonic ideals, absolute ethical values, categorical imperatives, and quests for Utopia. Berlin offers a pluralistic, cultural approach to understanding human affairs, not unlike the Italian historian Vico. As humans, we are capable of understanding other humans, and their values, actions, and customs. We can criticise and condemn other cultures, but...more
Like The Blank Slate, this book was a life-changer for me. Reading it convinced me that radicalism in politics is ultimately self-defeating, and that irreconcilable political opponents not simply can get along, but they must get along (with some rare exceptions, viz. Nazis). Liberalism isn't acceptance of those boneheads over there, but is rather the idea that failing to give them a voice will lead to something a lot worse.
Isaiah Berlin fue en buena medida un escritor magnetofónico: muchos de sus textos fueron alocuciones privadas frente a un grabador. Por los créditos de rescate, Henry Hardy. Esta coletánea de ensayos es de variable intensidad y transparencia. Pero incluso cuando Berlin se torna un poco académico en el sentido adocenado de la palabra, aparece un adjetivo, un dato, una frase que hacen de todo cuanto escribe una experiencia. Son de especial interés su ensayo sobre "Joseph de Maistre y los orígenes...more
Absolutely exceptional. I highly recommend this book. Stimulating, thiught provoking and brilliant. Minds get hungry and are fed by this very kind of book.
Oct 07, 2012
Amin Riahi
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
philosophy,
liberalism
ترجمه لیلا سازگار بسیار خوب است. فصل دومستر این کتاب بسیار جذاب است هر چند ظاهرا برلین در اواخر عمر نسبت به این فصل دیدگاه انتقادی داشت.
Some books come to you at the right time and help you articulate your own thought processes. After only 30 pages, my brain is on fire. I am awestruck by Berlin's depth, intelligence and synthesis of thought.
A must-read book to understand the dark sides of modern Western history
'Out of the crooked timber of humanity nothing straight can be made'
Berlin is a master
" European Unity and it's Vicissitudes " is simply amazing ( written in 1959 ! )
I recommend the chapters entitled "Joseph de Maistre and the Origins of Fascism" (available for download at the New York Review of Books' website), "The Apotheosis of the Romantic Will," and "The Decline of Utopian Ideas in the West." Since I scanned this book into my computer I can email it to interested readers.
A must. Berlin is one of the greatest sages of the previous century. When the misty fad of Foucault, Derrida and company has faded and we are in deep catastrophe and faced with the temptations to radical extremism violence and mad utopianism on the left and rigid reaction on the right Berlin will be needed.
May 24, 2007
Aaron
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
if you're interested in how people make choices over time and what that means for history
fascinating book, with plenty of interesting ideas about how people make decisions over the long-term, and how "true-to-ourselves" we can ever be.
"Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made."
Berlin is one of my very favorite history-tellers.
Aug 31, 2010
Peter
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Shelves:
1945-1979,
20th-century,
english-writers,
essays,
liberalism,
history,
intellectual-history,
nebcat1
Isaiah Berlin: prettily wrong about things.
May 18, 2013
Ryan
marked it as to-read
May 13, 2013
Konstantinos Chatzigeorgiou
is currently reading it
May 07, 2013
Pinaki Majumdar
marked it as to-read
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Sir Isaiah Berlin was a philosopher and historian of ideas, regarded as one of the leading liberal thinkers of the twentieth century. He excelled as an essayist, lecturer and conversationalist; and as a brilliant speaker who delivered, rapidly and spontaneously, richly allusive and coherently structured material, whether for a lecture series at Oxford University or as a broadcaster on the BBC Thir...more
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“Both liberty and equality are among the primary goals pursued by human beings throughout many centuries; but total liberty for wolves is death to the lambs, total liberty of the powerful, the gifted, is not compatible with the rights to a decent existence of the weak and the less gifted.”
—
26 people liked it
“Men would no longer be victims of nature or of their own largely irrational societies: reason would triumph; universal harmonious cooperation, true history, would at last begin.
For if this was not so, do the ideas of progress, of history, have any meaning? Is there not a movement, however tortuous, from ignorance to knowledge, from mythical thought and childish fantasies to perception of reality face to face, to knowledge of true goals, true values as well as truths of fact? Can history be a mere purposeless succession of events, caused by a mixture of material factors and the play of random selection, a tale full of sound and fury signifying nothing? This was unthinkable. The day would dawn when men and women would take their lives in their own hands and not be self-seeking beings or the playthings of blind forces that they did not understand. It was, at the very least, not impossible to conceive that such an earthly paradise could be; and if conceivable we could, at any rate, try to march towards it. That has been at the centre of ethical thought from the Greeks to the Christian visionaries of the Middle Ages, from the Renaissance to progressive thought in the last century; and indeed, is believed by many to this day.”
—
3 people liked it
More quotes…
For if this was not so, do the ideas of progress, of history, have any meaning? Is there not a movement, however tortuous, from ignorance to knowledge, from mythical thought and childish fantasies to perception of reality face to face, to knowledge of true goals, true values as well as truths of fact? Can history be a mere purposeless succession of events, caused by a mixture of material factors and the play of random selection, a tale full of sound and fury signifying nothing? This was unthinkable. The day would dawn when men and women would take their lives in their own hands and not be self-seeking beings or the playthings of blind forces that they did not understand. It was, at the very least, not impossible to conceive that such an earthly paradise could be; and if conceivable we could, at any rate, try to march towards it. That has been at the centre of ethical thought from the Greeks to the Christian visionaries of the Middle Ages, from the Renaissance to progressive thought in the last century; and indeed, is believed by many to this day.”
