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The Selected Letters of Bertrand Russell: The Public Years, 1914-1970 (Vol 2)
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Product Description
This second of two volumes of Russell's letters covers most of Russell's adult life, the period during which he wrote over thirty books. Alongside Russell's Autobiography, these letters present the most accurate and fascinating account of his life yet published. They contain letters to some of the greatest figures of the twentieth century, including Ho Chi Minh, Lyndon Johnson, Tito, Jawaharlal Nehru and Jean-Paul Sartre, all but three which are previously unpublished.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #1786352 in Books
- Published on: 2002-10-25
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Paperback
- 680 pages
Editorial Reviews
Review
These are not mere selection of letters; they are letters expertly chosen and brillantly annotated, with a running commentary situating each one in the complex circumstances of Russells life...nothing else written about Russells life, including recent biographies, comes near it in value...a remarkable document about a remarkable life. - Literary Review, April 2001
Pray silence for the sage of Plas Penrhyn - possibly the most celebrated English intellectual of the 20th century. At times one feels that if Russell had not existed, Nancy Mitford or Evelyn Waugh would have had to invent him. - The Times
With the publication of the second volume of The Selected Letters of Bertrand Russell, Nicholas Griffin has completed a work of impressive scholarship. - Russell: The Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies
'Immaculate edition ... If the centaur's hooves beat thunderously in these pages, they are also the echo of a passionate intellect at once destructive and creative, suffering and asured, whether in a Cambridge college or Brixton jail.' - The Guardian
'Often, Booker Prize judges are shockingly disparaged. Having been one myself, I think I can vouch for their honesty. But how, this year, did they fail to recognise the genius of Melvyn Bragg's A Son of War ... And, if you overlooked it in the anti-liberal deluge, The Selected Letters of Bertrand Russell: The Public Years 1914-1970 (Routledge £25, pp704), edited by Nicholas Griffin. On almost every page the old boy scatters his enemies with a single swipe.' - Michael Foot, Observer Books of the Year
'Pray silence for the sage of Plas Penrhyn - possibly the most celebrated English intellectual of the 20th century. At times one feels that if Russell had not existed, Nancy Mitford or Evelyn Waugh would have had to invent him.' - The Times
'These are not mere selection of letters; they are letters expertly chosen and brillantly annotated, with a running commentary situating each one in the complex circumstances of Russell's life...nothing else written about Russell's life, including recent biographies, comes near it in value...a remarkable document about a remarkable life.' - Literary Review, April 2001
About the Author
Bertrand Russellwas one of the most famous philosophers of the twentieth century. Nicholas Griffin is Professor of Philosophy at McMaster University. He is editor of two volumes of Russell's Collected Papers (Vol 1 1988; Vol 2 1990), published by Routledge.
Customer Reviews
AN OUTSTANDING SELECTION
This book is recommended reading for anyone interested in a fresh approach to the workings of the mind one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century.
It is a selection of 338 letters written by Bertrand Russell between 1914 and 1970. Sifting though more than 40,000 letters is no simple feat. Fortunately the editor is Nicholas Griffin, director of the Bertrand Russel Research Center at McMaster University in Ontario. As editor of Russell's "Collected Papers", he is in an enviable position to provide us with the juiciest tidbits of Russell's dry humour, as well as a portrait of a passionate man.
The editor commentaries to the letters are useful in order to better understand and put in perspective some events and people mentioned by this very extraordinary thinker. One that you have to know well, if you are to understand how could he write in 1967
that "a great deal of work has come upon me, neglect of which might jeopardise the continuation of the human being......" Kudos to the editor.
