Berlin, Isaiah

Berlin, Isaiah. Historical Inevitability. Oxford University Press. 1954. 79 pp.

The main purpose of this lecture is to consider a tendency which has, in the West, been growing since the eighteenth century, to regard human history as the product of impersonal "forces" obeying "inexorable" laws; with the implied consequence that individual human beings are seldom responsible for bringing about situations for which they are commonly praised or blamed, since the real culprit is "the historical process" itself - which individuals can do little to influence. "A magnificent assertion of the reality of human freedom, of the role of free choice in history." - London Economist.