The Hedgehog and the Fox
An Essay on Tolstoy's View of History
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The Hedgehog and the Fox
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Narrated by:
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Peter Kenny
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By:
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Isaiah Berlin
About this listen
The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.
For Isaiah Berlin, there is a fundamental distinction in mankind: those who are fascinated by the infinite variety of things - foxes - and those who relate everything to a central all-embracing system - hedgehogs. It can be applied to the greatest creative minds: Dante, Ibsen and Proust are hedgehogs, while Shakespeare, Aristotle and Joyce are foxes.
Yet when Berlin reaches the case of Tolstoy, he finds a fox by nature, but a hedgehog by conviction; a duality that holds the key to understanding Tolstoy's work, illuminating a paradox of his philosophy of history and showing why he was frequently misunderstood by his contemporaries and critics.
With a foreword by Michael Ignatieff
A W&N Essential
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©1953 Isaiah Berlin (P)2021 Orion Publishing GroupCritic reviews
"Beautifully written and suggestive." (W. H. Auden, New Yorker)
"Delightful." (Sunday Times)
"Ingenious and subtle...exactly what good critical writing should be." (Guardian)