The Hedgehog and the Fox: An Essay on Tolstoy's View of HistoryThis essay on Tolstoy underlines a fundamental distinction between those people (foxes) who are fascinated by the infinite variety of things and those (hedgehogs) who relate everything to a central, all-embracing system. The author observes that while Tolstoy longed for a unitary vision, his perception of people, things, and the moments of history was so acute that he could not stop himself from writing as he saw, felt, and understood. He was by nature a fox who wanted to be a hedgehog. |
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The Hedgehog and the Fox: An Essay on Tolstoy's View of History Isaiah Berlin No preview available - 1993 |
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abstract absurd achieved Albert Sorel Aldous Huxley artistic aware batailles battle believed blind c'est causes celebrated century conceived course critics destruction doctrine Dostoevsky Eikhenbaum empirical everything experience explain F. R. Leavis fact forces France French genius hedgehog historians human ignorance illusion important individual inevitable inexorable inner intellectual ISAIAH BERLIN Ivan Turgenev James Gould Cozzens Joseph de Maistre Karataev Kareev kill kind knowledge Kutuzov later laws less letters liberal lives Maistre and Tolstoy Maistre's metaphysical moral Moscow mystical Napoleon natural science novel observation Peace philosophical Pierre Pierre Bezukhov political Prince Andrey principle Proudhon psychological Pushkin rational reason Rousseau Russian scientific seems sense of reality Slavophils social St Petersburg Stendhal superficial theory of history things thinkers thought tions Tolstogo Tolstoy and Maistre Tolstoy's view Traven true truth Turgenev ultimate understand violent vision Voina War and Peace wisdom writer