Political Judgement

The sixth and last of Isaiah Berlin's famous 1965 Mellon Lectures In March–April 1965 Isaiah Berlin delivered his most famous series of public lectures, the A. W. Mellon Lectures (sponsored by the Bollingen Foundation), at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. The lectures were entitled 'Some Sources of Romanticism', and transcripts were published posthumously as 'The Roots of Romanticism', edited by Henry Hardy (London, 1999: Chatto and Windus; Princeton, 1999: Princeton University Press). A second edition was published by Princeton in 2013, with a new foreword by John Gray and an appendix containing contemporary letters about the lectures.

The fourth of Isaiah Berlin's famous 1965 Mellon Lectures In March–April 1965 Isaiah Berlin delivered his most famous series of public lectures, the A. W. Mellon Lectures (sponsored by the Bollingen Foundation), at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. The lectures were entitled 'Some Sources of Romanticism', and transcripts were published posthumously as 'The Roots of Romanticism', edited by Henry Hardy (London, 1999: Chatto and Windus; Princeton, 1999: Princeton University Press). A second edition was published by Princeton in 2013, with a new foreword by John Gray and an appendix containing contemporary letters about the lectures.

The fifth of Isaiah Berlin's famous 1965 Mellon Lectures In March–April 1965 Isaiah Berlin delivered his most famous series of public lectures, the A. W. Mellon Lectures (sponsored by the Bollingen Foundation), at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. The lectures were entitled 'Some Sources of Romanticism', and transcripts were published posthumously as 'The Roots of Romanticism', edited by Henry Hardy (London, 1999: Chatto and Windus; Princeton, 1999: Princeton University Press). A second edition was published by Princeton in 2013, with a new foreword by John Gray and an appendix containing contemporary letters about the lectures.

The third of Isaiah Berlin's famous 1965 Mellon Lectures In March–April 1965 Isaiah Berlin delivered his most famous series of public lectures, the A. W. Mellon Lectures (sponsored by the Bollingen Foundation), at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. The lectures were entitled 'Some Sources of Romanticism', and transcripts were published posthumously as 'The Roots of Romanticism', edited by Henry Hardy (London, 1999: Chatto and Windus; Princeton, 1999: Princeton University Press). A second edition was published by Princeton in 2013, with a new foreword by John Gray and an appendix containing contemporary letters about the lectures.

The second of Isaiah Berlin's famous 1965 Mellon Lectures In March–April 1965 Isaiah Berlin delivered his most famous series of public lectures, the A. W. Mellon Lectures (sponsored by the Bollingen Foundation), at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. The lectures were entitled 'Some Sources of Romanticism', and transcripts were published posthumously as 'The Roots of Romanticism', edited by Henry Hardy (London, 1999: Chatto and Windus; Princeton, 1999: Princeton University Press). A second edition was published by Princeton in 2013, with a new foreword by John Gray and an appendix containing contemporary letters about the lectures.

Howard Burton talks to Henry Hardy, Fellow of Wolfson and author of ‘In Search of Isaiah Berlin: A Literary Adventure’, about being the principal editor of one of the twentieth century’s most captivating public intellectuals This podcast for the Ideas Roadshow discusses some of the joys and frustrations of working with Isaiah Berlin on his texts for the last twenty-three years of Berlin's life.

The first of Isaiah Berlin's famous 1965 Mellon Lectures In March–April 1965 Isaiah Berlin delivered his most famous series of public lectures, the A. W. Mellon Lectures (sponsored by the Bollingen Foundation), at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. The lectures were entitled 'Some Sources of Romanticism', and transcripts were published posthumously as 'The Roots of Romanticism', edited by Henry Hardy (London, 1999: Chatto and Windus; Princeton, 1999: Princeton University Press). A second edition was published by Princeton in 2013, with a new foreword by John Gray and an appendix containing contemporary letters about the lectures. In this first lecture he confronts the vexed question of whether there is actually such a thing as Romanticism (a label, some hold, on too many bottles), and if so, how it is to be described and defined. Towards the end there occurs a celebrated rhetorical tour de force in which he breathlessly lists the many, very various, characteristics that have been called Romantic by writers on the subject.

Lecture by Isaiah Berlin on 5 October 1964 to the conference on ‘One Hundred Years of Revolutionary Internationals’ held at Stanford University to mark the centenary of the First International Working Men’s Association The full text from which the lecture is loosely derived is included as ‘Marxism and the International in the Nineteenth Century’ in Berlin’s collection 'The Sense of Reality: Studies in Ideas and Their History', edited by Henry Hardy (London, 1996: Chatto and Windus; 2nd ed., Princeton, 2019: Princeton University Press)

A 1957 BBC Third Programme talk by Isaiah Berlin on the distinctiveness of the understanding and judgement we deploy in human affairs, especially in the field of politics 'What is it to have good judgement in politics? What is it to be politically wise, or gifted, to be a political genius, or even to be no more than politically competent, to know how to get things done?' These are the opening words of this 1957 BBC Third Programme talk, from the series 'Thinking about Politics', in which the celebrated political theorist Isaiah Berlin discusses the distinctive capacities we deploy in our understanding of human affairs, and especially in assessing political situations and making decisions about how to act politically. The talk is included in Berlin’s collection 'The Sense of Reality: Studies in Ideas and Their History', edited by Henry Hardy (London, 1996: Chatto and Windus; 2nd ed., Princeton, 2019: Princeton University Press).

This podcast is in Russian. This short recording includes 'Cinque' and other poems inspired by the poet's meetings with Isaiah Berlin. The celebrated Russian poet Anna Akhmatova came to Oxford at Isaiah Berlin's instigation in June 1965, a year before her death, to receive an honorary DLitt. In this short recording, made at New College, Oxford, during her visit, she reads a number of her poems (in the original Russian). Some of them were inspired by Berlin's visits to her in Leningrad in 1945–6. For IB's recollections of these visits see his 'Meetings with Russian Writers in 1945 and 1956' in his 'Personal Impressions' (3rd edition, 2014, pp. 356-432). The poems are: 1. 'It is stingy, and rich' (1910s): «И скупо оно и богато ...» 2. 'Another Song' (1956), from 'Sweetbriar in Blossom': «Как сияло, так и пело ...» 3. 'You demand poems from me bluntly ...' (1962), from 'Sweetbriar in Blossom': «Ты стихи мои требуешь прямо ...» 4. From 'Prologue, or Dream within a Dream', from the play 'Enuma Elish' (1960s): Из пьесы «Пролог или Сон во Сне» 5. The complete cycle of five poems, 'Cinque' (1945–6), written immediately after meeting Berlin; Akhmatova wrote no. 2 down for Berlin in a presentation copy of her 'From Six Books' (1940) – see preview image «Как у облака на краю ...» «Истлевают звуки в эфире ...» «Я не любила с давних дней ...» «Знаешь сам, что не стану славит ...» «Не дышали мы сонными маками ...» 6. 'We thought: we are beggars ...' (1915): «Думали: нищие мы, нету у нас ничего ...» 7. 'Verses about St Petersburg' (1913): «Вновь Исакий в облаченье ...» «Сердце бьется гулко, мерно ...» 8. 'Ah, for you Russian is not enough ...' (1962): «А тебе еще мало по-русски ...»