John Gray
Romantic Rebel?
The Discovery of Chance: The Life and Thought of Alexander Herzen
By Aileen M Kelly
Harvard University Press 592pp £29.95
Born the illegitimate son of a wealthy Russian landowner and a young German Protestant in 1812, Alexander Herzen was part of a generation of intellectuals who grew up under the spell of Hegel. There are many strands in Hegel’s thought, which at times seems wilfully obscure, but what most attracted the philosopher’s Russian admirers was his dictum ‘What is real is rational, and what is rational is real.’ For Hegel, history was not a jumble of events but a rational process culminating in the emergence of the modern state. True freedom was not the arbitrary assertion of human will but submission to this process.
That view had a powerful attraction for Russian intellectuals in the 1830s and 1840s, when Hegel’s philosophy was first introduced to Russia, and bewitched many of them from then on. Finding themselves trapped in an autocratic system over which they had no influence, they turned to Hegel because he offered
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
London's East End was long synonymous with poverty and sweatshops, while its West End was associated with glamour and high society. But when it came to the fashion industry, were the differences really so profound?
Sharman Kadish - Winkle-pickers & Bum Freezers
Sharman Kadish: Winkle-pickers & Bum Freezers - Fashion City: How Jewish Londoners Shaped Global Style; Fashion City: ...
literaryreview.co.uk
In 1982, Donald Rumsfeld presented Saddam Hussein with a pair of golden spurs. Two decades later he was dropping bunker-busting bombs on his palaces.
Where did the US-Iraqi relationship go wrong?
Rory Mccarthy - The Case of the Vanishing Missiles
Rory Mccarthy: The Case of the Vanishing Missiles - The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the United States and the ...
literaryreview.co.uk
Barbara Comyns was a dog breeder, a house painter, a piano restorer, a landlady... And a novelist.
@nclarke14 on the lengths 20th-century women writers had to go to make ends meet:
Norma Clarke - Her Family & Other Animals
Norma Clarke: Her Family & Other Animals - Barbara Comyns: A Savage Innocence by Avril Horner
literaryreview.co.uk