Henry Hardy 
The Book of Isaiah: Personal Impressions of Isaiah Berlin 

Isaiah Berlin was born a century ago. One of the most celebrated British thinkers of the twentieth century, he was a tireless champion of freedom and diversity against control and conformity. His generous, open vision of life is displayed with special immediacy in his brilliant pen-portraits of contemporaries, Personal Impressions, in which he sees the point of radically differing personalities, enters into their distinctive outlooks, and describes his encounters with them, in arrestingly idiosyncratic prose.


The Book of Isaiah turns the tables on Berlin, offering a series of personal impressions of him and his ideas by a range of people who knew him, or have been affected by his work. This multi-faceted testimony enriches and supplements Michael Ignatieff’s celebrated authorised biography. The volume includes tributes written when Berlin died, essays specially commissioned from friends and fromstudents of his work, and a previously unpublished family memoir by Berlin’s father, which preserves for his son, and for posterity, the story of his Hasidic forebears, and of the many relatives murdered by the Nazis. The result is a collection indispensable both for existing enthusiasts and for those who are curious to learn about Berlin’s unique, compelling appeal.


HENRY HARDY is a Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford, and one of Isaiah Berlin’s Literary Trustees.

Table of Content

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In Search of Isaiah Berlin – Evan Zimroth-Wollman

Tribute – Annan and Stuart Hampshire and Avishai Margalit and Bernard Williams and Katharine Graham and Arthur Schlesinger Jr and James Billington and Robert Silvers and Charles Taylor

Isaiah As I Knew Him – Bryan Magee

So Much There – Anthony Quinton

Akhmatova and Sir – Anatoly Naiman

Run Over by Isaiah – Peter Oppenheimer

Working for Isaiah – Patricia Utechin and Humphrey Carpenter

New York City, Autumn 1966 – Samuel Guttenplan

Lunching with Isaiah – Alan Montefiore and Nick Rankin

A Luminous Personality – Aileen Kelly

In the President’s Office – Serena Moore

Tea at the Athenaeum – Joseph Brodsky

Some Musical Encounters – Alfred Brendel

Editing Berlin, Interpreting Berlin – Henry Hardy and Kei Hiruta

One of the Giants of the Twentieth Century – Beata Polanowska-Sygulska

The Day After – G A Cohen

Fast Talker – Alistair Cooke

Isaiah the Jew – Shlomo Avineri and Alan Ryan

All Ears – Robert Wokler

A Philosopher’s Stroll – Nicholas Henderson

Berlin in Autumn: The Philosopher in Old Age – Michael Ignatieff

When a Sage Dies, All Are His Kin – Leon Wieseltier

The Last Englishman – Ian Buruma

The Value of the Personal – Joshua Cherniss

A Berlinian Education – George Crowder

The Legacy of Open Thought – Steffen Gross

The Fox is Still Running – James Chappel

Isaiah Berlin on Himself – Jennifer Holmes

The Berlin Papers in the Bodleian Library – Michael Hughes

Elysian Schools – Isaiah Berlin

For the Benefit of My Son – Mendel Berlin