The work of Rabbi Naftali ¿vi Yehuda Berlin, the Ne¿iv, ranks amongst the most often read rabbinic literature of the nineteenth century. His breadth of learning, unabashed creativity, and penchant for walking against the stream of the rabbinic commentarial establishment has made his commentaries a favoriteamongst rabbinic scholars and scholars of rabbinics alike. Yet, to date, there has been no comprehensive and systematic attempt to place his intellectual oeuvre into its historical context-until now. In 'The Pillar of Volozhin', Gil Perl traces the infl uences which helped mold and shape the Ne¿iv's thinking while also opening new doors into the world of early-nineteenth-century Lithuanian Torah scholarship, an area heretofore almost completely untouched byacademic research.