Personal Impressions

Rating:
Summary: Biography becomes autobiography also
Review: 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.