The Discovery of Chance: The Life and Thought of Alexander Herzen
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.62 (568 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0674737113 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 608 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2017-10-10 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
A must read for anyone interested in 19th century intellectual history I am not one who usually posts review online or one who would usually give 5 stars; however, this book is an extraordinary contribution not only to those few of us who are obsessed with 19th century Russian intellectual history, but, I think for anyone who wants to better understand the nuances of 19th century thought that often get swept under the carpet by accidents of the 20th century.Dr. Kelly adds greatly to our understanding of Herzen, who was acknowledged by friends and enemies alike in the 19th century as one of the great thinkers and philosophers of his age, with
As Aileen Kelly demonstrates in this absorbing, revelatory and surely definitive study, the intellectual catalyst that shaped Herzen’s rejection of the idea that freedom is found in submitting to historical necessity was his encounter with science. (John Gray Literary Review 2016-05-01)Of Russia’s great nineteenth-century writers, two stand out as consistently critical of teleological systems and passionately devoted to a humanism of direct vital feeling: Leo Tolstoy and Alexander Herzen. (Robin Feuer Miller Times Higher Education 2016-06-09) . (Gary Saul Morson, Northwestern University)A gripping biography of a tragic if courageous life…The hidden strands in Herzen’s thought, painstakingly uncovered here by Aileen Kelly, provide yet another compelling reason we should read the melancholy old Russian again and re
Aileen Kelly is Fellow of King’s College and Reader in Intellectual History and Russian Culture, Emerita, at the University of Cambridge.
In the same year that Marx declared communism to be the “solution to the riddle of history,” Herzen denied that any such solution could exist. Following his unconventional decision to study science at university, he came to recognize the implications of early evolutionary theory, not just for the natural world but for human history. While he is remembered for his masterpiece My Past and Thoughts and as the father of Russian socialism, his contributions to the history of ideas defy easy categorization because they are so numerous. History, like nature, was contingentan improvisation both constrained and encouraged by chance.. In this respect, he was a Darwinian even before Darwin.Socialism for Russia, as Herzen conceived it, was not an ideologyleast of all Marxian “scientific socialism”but a concrete means of grappling with unique historical circumstances, a way for Russians to combine the best of Western achievements with the possibilities of their own cultural milieu in order to move forward. Alexander Herzenphilosopher, novelist, essayist, political agitator, and one of the leading Russian intellectuals of the nineteenth centurywas as famous in his day as Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. Aileen Kelly presents the first fully rounded study of the farsighted genius whom Isaiah Berlin called “the forerunner of much twent