This collection of pen-portraits of the renowned public intellectual Isaiah Berlin, published to mark the centenary of his birth, brings him vividly to life from many vantage-points: essential reading for all who seek to understand the full range of his impact.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written when Berlin died, essays specially commissioned from friends and fromstudents of his work, and a previously unpublished family memoir by Berlin's father, which preserves for his son, and for posterity, the story of his Hasidic forebears, and of the many relatives murdered by the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.

- In Search of Isaiah Berlin - Evan Zimroth-WollmanTribute - 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 TaylorIsaiah As I Knew Him - Bryan MageeSo Much There - Anthony QuintonAkhmatova and Sir - Anatoly NaimanRun Over by Isaiah - Peter OppenheimerWorking for Isaiah - Patricia Utechin and Humphrey CarpenterNew York City, Autumn 1966 - Samuel GuttenplanLunching with Isaiah - Alan Montefiore and Nick RankinA Luminous Personality - Aileen KellyIn the President's Office - Serena MooreTea at the Athenaeum - Joseph BrodskySome Musical Encounters - Alfred BrendelEditing Berlin, Interpreting Berlin - Henry Hardy and Kei HirutaOne of the Giants of the Twentieth Century - Beata Polanowska-SygulskaThe Day After - G A CohenFast Talker - Alistair CookeIsaiah the Jew - Shlomo Avineri and Alan RyanAll Ears - Robert WoklerA Philosopher's Stroll - Nicholas HendersonBerlin in Autumn: The Philosopher in Old Age - Michael IgnatieffWhen a Sage Dies, All Are His Kin - Leon WieseltierThe Last Englishman - Ian BurumaThe Value of the Personal - Joshua ChernissA Berlinian Education - George CrowderThe Legacy of Open Thought - Steffen GrossThe Fox is Still Running - James ChappelIsaiah Berlin on Himself - Jennifer HolmesThe Berlin Papers in the Bodleian Library - Michael HughesElysian Schools - Isaiah BerlinFor the Benefit of My Son - Mendel Berlin