"This book is an exercise in theoretical conversation. Two of the most iconic thinkers of the twentieth century, Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) and Isaiah Berlin (1909-1997) fundamentally disagreed on central issues in politics, history and philosophy. In spite of their overlapping life-stories and experiences as Jewish émigré intellectuals, they held mutual dislike for each other, Berlin going so far as to characterise Arendt as representing 'everything that I detest most'.