There are many good reasons to commemorate Isaiah Berlin’s life. Like many Jewish émigrés of his generation settled in Britain, he proved capable of reinterpreting the national culture. As a broadcaster and lecturer, he performed without notes, stringing from idea to idea with the precarious ease of a man on wire in the wind. He was a dinner-party superstar. “A fascinating figure, bubbling continuously with energetic vitality, he is becoming a legend,” American Vogue reported gushingly in 1950. ‘He talks all day and all night at astonishing speed. His knowledge is truly terrifying, ranging from Russian literature to the history of political thought.'”