It is sometimes thought that the renowned essayist Isaiah Berlin (1909-1997) was incapable of writing a big book. But in fact he developed some of his most important essays - including "Two Concepts of Liberty" and "Historical Inevitability" - from a book-length manuscript that he intended to publish but later set aside. Published here for the first time, "Political Ideas in the Romantic Age" is the only book in which Berlin lays out in one continuous account most of his key insights about the history of ideas in the period that he made his own - the Romantic age. Distilling his formative early work in the history of ideas, the book also contains much that is not found elsewhere in his writings. The last of Berlin's posthumous books, it is of great interest both for his treatment of the subject and for what it reveals about his intellectual development. Written for a series of lectures at Bryn Mawr College in 1952, and heavily revised and expanded by Berlin afterward, this book argues that the political ideas of the Romantic age are still largely our own - down to the language and metaphors they are expressed in. Vividly expounding the central political ideas of leading European thinkers in the period 1760-1830, including Helvetius, Condorcet, Rousseau, Saint-Simon, Hegel, Schelling, and Fichte, this book is written in Berlin's characteristically accessible style. This book has been carefully prepared by Berlin's longtime editor Henry Hardy, and Joshua L. Cherniss provides an illuminating introduction that sets it in the context of Berlin's life and work.

以赛亚•伯林，20世纪最杰出的自由主义思想家之一。1909年出生于现今的拉脱维亚首都里加。六岁时随家迁至俄罗斯。1917年，他在彼得格勒（圣彼得堡）目睹了社会民主派和布尔什维克两次革命，受其影响甚大。1921年，他随家来到英国，在牛津的圣保罗学院和科珀斯•克里斯蒂学院接受教育。在牛津工作期间，他是全灵学院研究员、新学院研究员、社会和政治理论教授，创建沃尔夫森学院并担任首任院长。他也曾担任英国人文与社会科学院院长。出版的著作有《卡尔•马克思》、《俄国思想家》、《概念与范畴》、《反潮流》、《个人印象》、《扭曲的人性之材》、《现实感》、《细究人性》、《浪漫主义的根源》、《观念的力量》、《启蒙运动的三位批评者》、《自由论》、和《苏联的心灵》。作为一位观念史的倡导者，他获得过伊拉斯谟、利平科特和阿涅利奖；他亦因终生捍卫公民自由而荣获耶路撒冷奖。伯1997年逝世。

编者简介：

亨利•哈代，牛津大学沃尔夫森学院研究员，是以赛亚•伯林著作权的信托人之一。他已编辑过伯林的多部著作——最近的一部是《蒸蒸日上：1928—1946年信件集》。