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Isaac and Isaiah: The Covert Punishment of a Cold War Heretic, by David Caute
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Two high-voltage scholars engage in a bitter conflict in this irresistible tale of principle and politics in the Cold War years
Rancorous and highly public disagreements between Isaiah Berlin and Isaac Deutscher escalated to the point of cruel betrayal in the mid-1960s, yet surprisingly the details of the episode have escaped historians’ scrutiny. In this gripping account of the ideological clash between two of the most influential scholars of Cold War politics, David Caute uncovers a hidden story of passionate beliefs, unresolved antagonism, and the high cost of reprisal to both victim and perpetrator.
Though Deutscher (1907–1967) and Berlin (1909–1997) had much in common—each arrived in England in flight from totalitarian violence, quickly mastered English, and found entry into the Anglo-American intellectual world of the 1950s—Berlin became one of the presiding voices of Anglo-American liberalism, while Deutscher remained faithful to his Leninist heritage, resolutely defending Soviet conduct despite his rejection of Stalin’s tyranny. Caute combines vivid biographical detail with an acute analysis of the issues that divided these two icons of Cold War politics, and brings to light for the first time the full severity of Berlin’s action against Deutscher.
- Sales Rank: #3072485 in Books
- Published on: 2015-07-14
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.96" h x .78" w x 5.51" l, 1.62 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 352 pages
Review
“Readers . . . will find themselves informed and absorbed by Mr. Caute's portrait of the intellectual battles of the Cold War.”—Adam Kirsch, Wall Street Journal (Adam Kirsch Wall Street Journal)
“What could have been a minor academic squabble is transformed here into a wide-ranging discussion of some of the major ideological disputes of the 20th century – Marxism, Zionism, liberalism and the significance of the Russian revolution.”—The Economist (The Economist 2013-12-07)
“Trenchant, engaging . . . sharply argued . . . The author’s wit and biting analysis render this a most readable study.”—Kirkus Reviews
(Kirkus Reviews)
“A riveting account . . . of an intellectual feud for the ages.”—David Mikics, Los Angeles Review of Books (David Mikics Los Angeles Review of Books 2013-08-10)
“The book I most enjoyed was David Caute’s Isaac and Isaiah. Caute transforms an academic squabble between Isaiah Berlin and Isaac Deutscher into a wide-ranging analysis of the ideological disputes of the 20th century – Marxism, the significance of the Russian revolution, liberalism and Zionism.”—Vernon Bogdanor, THES, Book of the Year (Vernon Bogdanor Times Higher Education Supplement 2013-12-19)
About the Author
David Caute, former fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, is a historian whose recent books include Politics and the Novel during the Cold War and The Dancer Defects. He lives in London.
Most helpful customer reviews
35 of 36 people found the following review helpful.
Isaiah Berlin, Academic Politics, and the Cold War
By Ronald H. Clark
I found this to be a most interesting book, as I believe anyone interested in Isaiah Berlin, the Cold War, and Russian Communism would. The focus of the book is the troubled relationship between Isaiah Berlin (1909-1997), the Oxford academic, and Isaac Deutscher (1907-1967), author of the magisterial three-volume biography of Trotsky. Specifically, the author demonstrates that Berlin used his position as academic adviser at Sussex University in 1963, to torpedo a proposed academic appointment for Deutscher at that institution. The author also demonstrates that Berlin played similar academic "dirty tricks" relative to Hannah Arendt because he disliked her book on the Eichmann trial.
Is this just a couple examples of academic politics, or something more? I was initially puzzled about the long-time conflict between the two (more on Berlin's side) given their similar backgrounds: Berlin's family having fled the Russian revolution; Deutscher having fled the Polish Communist party. But the author demonstrates how they differed on many key points, such as the purpose and techniques of historical analysis; the meaning of Marxism; Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin; monism v. pluralism; and Zionism.
But it is clear that Berlin detested Deutscher for reasons above and beyond their respective views of Marxism and Cold War Soviet activities. The author demonstrates that what initially set Berlin off on this feud of many decades was Deutscher's highly critical review of Berlin's first short book, "Historical Inevitability." Berlin was always sensitive to charges (such as Hannah Arendt's) that he was not "first rate." Early on, he had abandoned academic philosophy for intellectual history. During his life, he never published a real book; only after his death did Henry Hardy begin to collect his writings into several volumes. So Deutscher struck a bar nerve apparently with his forceful review.
But the book has far more importance than just retelling an academic slug fest. The reader learns a great deal about the Cold War; academic historical writing; Marxist theory; soviet tyranny during this period; and postwar Stalinism and the soviet-dominated eastern european nations. There is also an interesting discussion of George Orwell.
However, the most important contribution of the book is to cast some light on the character and activities of Isaiah Berlin, almost universally respected. I have been interested in Berlin for a good while and read extensively on him. The glimmer began to fade however when it was revealed that he had had a lengthy affair with the wife of H.L.A. Hart. Add that to the Deutscher and Arendt episodes in this book, and he does not emerge in a flattering position. But at least, we can begin to understand this most unique individual in a better light.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
Covertly yours,
By Hande Z
This is an account of the one incident that might cause a blemish on the reputation of one of the most brilliant, loquacious, and charming intellectuals of the twentieth century - Isaiah Berlin. Berlin, like the co-protaganist on the cover of the book, Isaac Deutscher, was a Polish Jew who moved to the UK during the Second World War. Berlin was a Latvian Jew who also moved to the UK, and settled in Oxford where he lived, taught, and died. They were contemporaries (Deutscher was born in 1907 and Berlin two years later) but Berlin was the longer-lived man. He died in 1997 - thirty years after Deutscher.
Berlin was a renowned Western liberal who was opposed to all forms of communism. Deutscher was against the Stalinist version of communism but remained sympathetic to an idealised form of communism. In this fascinating book, Caute leads the reader into the lives of these two men and their intellectual antagonism they held towards each other. The high point of this book is the finger pointing at Berlin for treacherously destroying Deutscher's chance of teaching at the University of Sussex. The details of how Berlin, despite the faculty's strong support for Deutscher's appointment, cast the strongest objection sitting as an external adviser.
The details of Berlin's role in condemning Deutscher to the hard life of journalism instead of the better paid academic post have been omitted by his biographers. Berlin denied to the end, and to Tamara Deutscher (Isaac's widow) that he was only one voice and that his objection was not that Deutscher should not be allowed to teach, only that he was not qualified for the post - Professor of Russian history. The left wing journal `The Black Dwarf' published an article about a year and a half after Deutscher's death criticising Berlin for being instrumental in scuttling Deutscher's appointment. Berlin was quoted as having said `You can't have a Marxist teach history'.
Caute rightly pointed out that the Deutscher episode did not make big news because the evidence was not there. Nonetheless, Caute seems inclined to believe the accusation to be true. After all, he began the book by recalling a conversation he had with Berlin in 1963 about the time the Deutscher decision was about to be made by the selection committee. Caute quoted Berlin's parting words to him (Caute): `You must excuse me, I have a boring meeting to attend. I must tell you frankly that Deutscher is the only man whose presence in the same academic community as myself I should find morally intolerable. I will not dine at the same table as Deutscher.'
Caute also sets out in detail, the correspondence revolving around the event in the final chapter of the book, entitled, `The Sussex Letters'. That chapter alone is worth the price of the book - and the reader is left to ponder how, if it is true, that the champion of liberalism would not tolerate a fellow intellectual just because of personal ideological differences.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Question - Why are academic squabble so bitter?
By Peter S. Bradley
Answer - Because so little is at stake.
I liked this book, but I didn't particularly like the theme that it was packaged around.
The basic conceit of the book is that arch-liberal philosopher of ideas Isaiah Berlin "persecuted" Marxist-apologist Isaac Deutscher. There are three problems with this thesis. First, Berlin and Deutscher met, maybe, twice and had very little direct interaction. Second, the "persecution" consisted of Berlin offering his personal opinion of Deutscher's ethics, in response to the floating of the notion that Deutscher might be hired for an academic position at Berlin's college, along with the quick statement to the effect that the administration could do what it wanted. Third, the author, David Caute, is clearly a Deutscher partisan.
Clearly, the book was supposed to get a lot of drama and movement from the implacable enmity of Berlin for Deutscher, which Deutscher, it seemed, never knew about. The interest is added to by the fact that Caute hd a brief conversation with a gossipy Berlin designed to submarine Deutscher's appointment. At various points, Caute offers some bit of inside information he has about the university system or university politics, which makes for some interesting insights.
On the other hand, the conflict doesn't really work. The sense I got was that Berlin was gossipy, and Deutscher was fanatical. I think I understand Berlin's antipathy to Deutscher to have been based on the fact that Deutscher was an apologist for mass murder. Although Caute glamorizes Deutscher with Lenin-like baldness and his Trotsky-like goatee, an objective look at Deutscher's predictions and explanations shows that he was always wrong, and he was always wrong because he glamorized and romanticized Marxist, including its Russian variant. Deutscher did occasionally speak out against Stalin, but usually in the context of explaining how Stalin was forced into some reprehensible atrocity or other.
One could easily see how this kind of thing would make a liberal anti-communist like Berlin feel that Deutscher was not fit to teach undergraduates, that putting a confirmed Marxist, who was ready to twist and contort everything into pre-ordained Marxist types, was a disservice to education. As Gunter Lewy points out in The Cause That Failed: Communism in American Political Life, in America there were debates about whether members of totalitarian parties could be trusted to communicate a truthful version of history instead of the "party line." With Deutscher, that concern seems eminently reasonable.
But Berlin didn't explain his antipathy on Deutscher's Marxism; in fact, he distanced himself from that explanation, and kept it mean and petty. I would have appreciated the author explaining why it would have reflected poorly on Berlin for his opposition to Deutscher to have been based on anti-communism. Perhaps anti-communism was passe in 1963? Caute's bias, perhaps, prevents him from looking at Marxism objectively, as outside of the mainstream.
The weakness of the theme of the book is underscored for me by the fact that it wasn't until the final chapter that Caute outlines the correspondence that apparently showed Berlin as being two-faced in pleading with others that he hadn't cost Deutscher a university job. Certainly, the correspondence superficially makes Berlin look like he was dissembling in his letters to Deutscher's wife, after Deutscher's death. it is strange that Berlin was so concerned with communicating with Deutscher's wife, when he and Deutscher had never communicated. As to the charge of dissembling, was Berlin really dissembling. He told the hiring officer his opinion, and why shouldn't he have? He also said that it wasn't his decision and he wouldn't stand in the hiring of Deutscher. Was he dissembling, then, when he told Deutscher's wife that he hadn't stood in the way of the hiring decision? Obviously, he undoubtedly knew what the outcome of his objection would be, but, equally, he could have been telling the truth.
That said, however, the book makes for an utterly fascinating read into the lives of people who were influential during the Cold War. There seems to be good background material on both Berlin and Deutscher and on Berlin's life in the diplomatic service during and after World War II. There were some interesting insights into university life and politics and culture. As Caute points out, this was a culture that was in constant correspondence with each other, and there is a wealth of information from the letters. Likewise, I was surprised to find that Berlin is not known for any "big book"; he was like the fox, not the hedgehog, with lots of little ideas. Finally, the chapter on Hannah Arendt was absolutely fascinating in uncovering some controversies, I hadn't known about.
This is a good book for a survey of the period and the culture. On that basis I would give it five stars, but in terms of the project that the book set for itself, it seems like a clear miss, so I give it three stars.
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