ISAIAH BERLIN WAS a man of great charm, intelligence, curiosity and distinction. Born in Riga in 1910, brought to England by his parents at the age of eleven, educated at St Paul’s and Corpus Christi, Oxford, Fellow of All Souls, Professor of Political Thought, first Master (and indeed creator) of Wolfson College, knighted and awarded the OM, this Russian Jew became an authentic member of the British Establishment – to his own recurrent surprise. He loved England dearly and, perhaps in self-protection, practised, almost to excess, the English art of self-deprecation.

Literary Review

Mar 2004

Categories

Allan Massie

A Class Act

Peter Pan Laid Bare

An Old-fashioned Kind of Spy

Character Building

Much More Useful than Writing Novels

Aesthete with a Cause

In Brigand Country

Law by Name, Lawless by Nature

He Took the Path of Most Resistance

Diary: Proust’s Progress

Pillaged People

Even So, He Had No Right to Beat Up Bibbles

A First-Rate Education

Toxic Relations

A Writer Who Needs to be Saved From His Admirers

Ruddy Old Gore

Border Patrol

25 Million and Counting

Byron Tells All

The Thistle Blooms

Kiss Me, Clodia

This Earth, This Realm, This Poland

Succession Planning

Vichy Business

Grain Store of Empires