Otto Neurath praised the merits of war economy from 1909 and argued for using his visual method in peace propaganda in 1933. He worked as the director of the Soviet IZOSTAT in the early 1930s and developed anti-Soviet visual propaganda for the British Ministry of Information from the late 1930s. He advocated the highbrow philosophy of logical empiricism in Vienna, and built a ground-to-earth, comprehensible anti-culture of visual facts called “Isotype” in London. Based on this, one might think that Neurath was changing sides and world views too frequently, which would, no doubt, make it harder to perceive him as a likeable character. But this is not necessarily the case. This impressive new book, Otto Neurath in Britain, portrays the minutiae of the misadventures of Neurath, and, by doing so, unpacks the apparent contradictions in his many-sided and quite controversial legacy.

Neurath is described as a person who tries to navigate through the absurd situations of the political and ideological turmoil of the 1930s to 1940s: a person who tries to stay alive, secure the well-being of his loved ones, and get the most out of his intellectual capacities. Arguably, the best chapter in the book is the third, titled “Escape and Internment.” It tells the fascinating story of how Neurath escaped from the Nazi-occupied Netherlands through the English Channel to Britain, and it gives an unprecedented glimpse into how it was to live in a British internment camp on the Isle of Man. The excellence of this chapter is twofold. One source of excellence is the awe-inspiring details. The reader really feels that he or she is there with Neurath and his future third wife, Marie, and experiences the excitement of the escape from the Nazis and then the microcosm of the British internment camp, a miniature, isolated world inhabited by temporary and permanent outcasts from Europe. The narrative voice here reminds us of that of the best historic novels. The sights, the noises, and the smells the characters encounter are described in a particularly vivid manner. One cannot unsee that this narrative choice might be, at the same time, a well-placed nod to the strong commitment of Neurath’s logical empiricism to sensory experience. The second source of excellence is the brilliant handling of Neurath’s various identities. Being a socialist, being an Austrian, being a Jewish person, being a scholar, being in a romantic relationship are all challenged in a fascinating story in which both Neurath and his environment are tinkering with the question of what does it mean to have these identities. My personal favorite is the story of Neurath and the special cheese of the orthodox Jews.

After portraying the great escape and the strangeness of life on the Isle of Man, the book describes how Otto and Marie Neurath took roots in the British intellectual milieu. While Otto undoubtedly kept a stiff upper lip even in the face of grave danger, which fit well with the British mentality, he was anything but temperate, which is, well, less compatible with the British attitude. So here was this uncompromising, red-haired, hulking fellow with a German name, a limited command of English, and a track record of working for the Soviets trying to land a job in an increasingly anti-German and anti-Soviet British political atmosphere. What could possibly go wrong? Actually, it went surprisingly well. Neurath got assignments from Adprint and Rotha films, so he and his colleagues started to make visual illustrations for both the written and the motion picture propaganda of the British Ministry of Information. They contributed to Social Security (1943), a booklet visualizing the Beveridge Plan; to the motion pictures A Few Ounces a Day (1941), World of Plenty (1943), and Land of Promise (1945); and to the pro-Soviet and pro-Stalin (!) book series of K. E. Holme, The Soviets and Ourselves. He established the Isotype Institute in Britain and kept editing the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science while enthusiastically remaking his home library and rereading his favorite books that had influenced him. Neurath used the term “A Second Youth” (Neurath Reference Neurath1942, p. 1; quoted by Burke and Tuboly on p. 116) in a letter to describe this episode of reinvigoration, and Burke and Tuboly highlighted the term as being defining for this period of Neurath’s life. One cannot agree more with all of them. The constructive energy, the positive attitude, which Neurath occasionally called “stoic Epicurean”-ism (Neurath Reference Neurath1940, p. 1; quoted by Burke and Tuboly on pp. 87, 269), and his increasingly large British social network suggested that the best is yet to come. Unfortunately, Neurath unexpectedly died of a stroke shortly after, only three days before the Christmas of 1945.

Burke and Tuboly deliver an insightful narrative that is rich in detail yet easy to follow. The book definitely builds on the previous related accounts of the authors—precisely in emphasizing Neurath’s pragmatism (Tuboly Reference Tuboly, Cat and Tuboly2019; Tuboly Reference Tuboly2021) and its relation to logical empiricism as well as in interpreting the contexts of Isotype (Burke, Kindel, and Walker Reference Burke, Kindel and Walker2014; Burke and Sandner Reference Burke and Sandner2024)—but it delivers a great deal of essentially new content worthy of scholarly interest. It should be noted that the book is not solely about Neurath. Dozens of well-known figures make well-placed brief cameos to entertain readers who are familiar with the British intellectual life of the 1930s and 1940s. Scholars, scientists, artists, political activists, and many others are coming, staying for a while, and showing the stakes of Neurath’s endeavors in a particularly lively and changing social milieu.

I highly recommend this book not just for those who are interested in the life and work of Otto Neurath but also for those who would like to know what it took to stay on-foot in a highly unpredictable and polarized political environment in the twentieth century. Unfortunately, this is a skill that is expected to be similarly useful in the 2040s as it was in the 1940s. Otto Neurath in Britain does not shy away from asking hard questions, even if it compromises its protagonist. It is a remarkable gem against the background of today’s politically aligned and hopelessly one-sided scholarship. It truly gives a glimpse into the complexities of Neurath’s character as well as his work, and not just during his years in Britain. This high-quality volume has the potential to become the definitive book on the life and work of Otto Neurath for several years to come.