Isaiah Berlin
The chilly charm of Clarissa Eden
Glamorous, enigmatic and well read, Anthony Eden’s wife was a discreet but unmistakable influence in Downing Street in the mid-1950s
What do we mean when we talk about freedom?
When the Yale historian and bestselling author Timothy Snyder was 14, his parents took him to Costa Rica, a country…
Too many tales of Mrs Tiggy-Winkle
Contemplating ‘hedgehog philosophy’ with Sarah Sands, Rowan Williams, Greta Thunberg and other luminaries would test anyone’s patience after 150 pages
The philosophical puzzles of the British Socrates
After vital work for British intelligence during the second world war, why did J.L. Austin devote the rest of his life to considering literally asinine questions?
Friendships and rivalries in the golden age of Oxford philosophy
Nikhil Krishnan provides many amusing vignettes of Isaiah Berlin, A.J. Ayer, Gilbert Ryle and others in the heyday of linguistic philosophy
Light and shade in the Holy Land – a century in spectacular images
Justin Marozzi on the troubled history of a small, much-coveted country
Fear, loneliness and nostalgia: a return to Johannesburg
Oddly enough, the cabin service people on the plane are constantly eating during the night, helping themselves to the first-class…
John Gray’s great tour-guide of ideas: from the Garden of Eden to secret rendition
You can’t accuse John Gray of dodging the big questions, or indeed the big answers. His new book The Soul…
Rugger, Robin Hood and Rupert of the Rhine: enthusiasms of the young Antonia Fraser
Despite it being a well known fact that Antonia Fraser had earthly parents, I had always imagined that she had…
Isaac & Isaiah, by David Caute - review
The scene is the common room of All Souls College, Oxford, in the first week of March 1963. It is…
