Personal Impressions [Import] [Paperback]

Isaiah Berlin (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 309 pages
• Publisher: Pimlico; New Ed edition (March 5, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 071266601X
• ISBN-13: 978-0712666015
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,129,214 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Biography becomes autobiography also, October 18, 2004

By 

Shalom Freedman "Shalom Freedman" (Jerusalem,Israel) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Personal Impressions (Hardcover)

Isaiah Berlin writes his personal impressions of some of the most distinguished people of his time, many of whom he knew personally. He does this with his characteristic insight and intelligence. Among those he writes about are Churchill, Roosevelt, Chaim Weizmann the President of Israel, Pasternak, Akhmatova, Virginian Woolf and Edmund Wilson. In making these portraits Berlin also holds the mirror up to himself , and biography becomes autobiography also.This is most tellingly so perhaps in the story of his famous meeting with Akhmatova who had lived so long in fear and darkness before Berlin's turning point visit. We also see the man of ideas as a man of action in the help he gave to Weizmann in the struggle for Israel's founding.

Every one of these essays contains insights of great interest.

This work is a pure delight, nectar and ambrosia for the mind.