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Henry Hardy's Top Book Recommendations

Want to know what books Henry Hardy recommends on their reading list? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Henry Hardy's favorite book recommendations of all time.

1

The Book of Isaiah

Personal Impressions of Isaiah Berlin

Henry Hardy | 4.70

Isaiah Berlin was born a century ago. One of the most celebrated British thinkers of the twentieth century, he was a tireless champion of freedom and diversity against control and conformity. His generous, open vision of life is displayed with special immediacy in his brilliant pen-portraits of contemporaries, Personal Impressions, in which he sees the point of radically differing personalities, enters into their distinctive outlooks, and describes his encounters with them, in arrestingly idiosyncratic prose. The Book of Isaiah turns the tables on Berlin, offering a series of personal... more
Recommended by Henry Hardy, and 1 others.

Henry HardyI wanted a wide variety of people to write about Berlin from their own different points of view. (Source)

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2

The Hedgehog And The Fox

out of 5 stars1 | 4.21

Isaiah Berlin's classic essay on Tolstoy - an exciting new edition with new criticism and a foreword.

'The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.' This fragment of Archilochus, which gives this book its title, describes the central thesis of Isaiah Berlin's masterly essay on Tolstoy. There have been various interpretations of Archilochus' fragment; Isaiah Berlin has simply used it, without implying anything about the true meaning of the words, to outline a fundamental distinction that exists in mankind, between those who are fascinated by the infinite...

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Recommended by Henry Hardy, and 1 others.

Henry HardyThe hedgehog and fox dichotomy divides writers and all human beings. Hedgehogs pursue one single vision, foxes are natural pluralists. (Source)

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3

Personal Impressions

Sir Isaiah Berlin | 4.16

This enthusiastically received collection contains Isaiah Berlin's appreciation of seventeen people of unusual distinction in the intellectual or political world - sometimes in both. The names of many of them are familiar - Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Chaim Weizmann, Albert Einstein, L. B. Namier, J. L. Austin, Maurice Bowra. With the exception of Roosevelt he met them all, and he knew many of them well.

For this new edition four new portraits have been added, including recollections of Virginia Woolf and Edmund Wilson. The volume ends with a vivid and moving account... more
Recommended by Henry Hardy, and 1 others.

Henry HardyThe most striking piece is his memoir of his meetings with Boris Pasternak and Anna Akhmatova. (Source)

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4

The Proper Study of Mankind

Isaiah Berlin, Henry Hardy, Roger Hausheer, Noel Annan | 4.34

Isaiah Berlin was one of the leading thinkers of our time and one of its finest writers. The Proper Study of Mankind brings together his most celebrated writing: here the reader will find Berlin's famous essay on Tolstoy, "The Hedgehog and the Fox"; his penetrating portraits of contemporaries from Pasternak and Akhmatova to Churchill and Roosevelt; his essays on liberty and his exposition of pluralism; his defense of philosophy and history against assimilation to scientific method; and his brilliant studies of such intellectual originals as Machiavelli, Vico, and Herder. less
Recommended by Henry Hardy, and 1 others.

Henry HardyIf you’re a serious person who wants to understand what it is that Berlin is up to, The Proper Study of Mankind is the book I would start with. (Source)

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5

Liberty

Incorporating Four Essays on Liberty

Isaiah Berlin, Henry Hardy | 4.13

Liberty is a revised and expanded edition of the book that Isaiah Berlin regarded as his most important--Four Essays on Liberty, a standard text of liberalism, constantly in demand and constantly discussed since it was first published in 1969. Writing in Harper's, Irving Howe described it as "an exhilarating performance--this, one tells oneself, is what the life of the mind can be."
Berlin's editor Henry Hardy has revised the text, incorporating a fifth essay that Berlin himself had wanted to include. He has also added further pieces that bear on the same... more
Recommended by Henry Hardy, and 1 others.

Henry HardyBerlin was asked what his most important book was, he said Liberty. I don’t disagree with him. (Source)

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