SOURCE: “The Philosopher of Sympathy: The Daring Humanism of Isaiah Berlin,” in The New Republic, Vol. 212, No. 8, February 20, 1995, pp. 31-6.

In the following encomium, Margalit outlines Berlin's life and work.

People who talk with Isaiah Berlin are often struck by a feeling of regret that he does not write his autobiography. Many have annoyed him with their excited pleas that he should devote himself to this task. The demand is understandable. After all, Berlin was at several “observation posts” from which he could follow closely the unfolding of some of the central events in this century.

In 1915, when Berlin was 6, his family moved from Riga and eventually ended up in Petrograd. From a window above a Petrograd shop in Wassily Ostrov, the child Shaya, as he was affectionately called by his parents (it is a diminutive of the original Hebrew for “Isaiah”), watched the Russian Revolution. In 1920, when...