A wonderfully engaging and entertaining history of the great dons of the last two hundred years, by one of our leading historians of ideas. Rich in anecdote, and displaying all the author's customary mastery of his subject, The Dons is Noel Annan at his erudite, encyclopedic and entertaining best. The book is a kaleidoscope of wonderful vignettes illustrating the brilliance and eccentricities of some of the greatest figures of British university life. Here is Buckland dropping to his knees to lick the supposed patch of martyr's blood in an Italian cathedral and remarking, 'I can tell you what it is; it's bat's urine.' Or the granitic Master of Balliol, A.D. Lindsay, whose riposte on finding himself in a minority of one at a College meeting was, 'I see we are deadlocked'. But, entertaining as it is, The Dons also has a more serious purpose. No other book has ever explained so precisely - and so amusingly - why the dons matter, and the importance of the role they have played in the shaping of British higher education over the past two centuries.

In January 1941, the twenty-four year old Noel Annan was assigned to Military Intelligence in Whitehall, where for the next four years he was to be involved in the crucial work of interpreting information supplied by a network of agents throughout occupied Europe and by the Ultra code-breakers at Bletchley Park. From Winston Churchill to Bomber Harris to the great minds at Bletchley, he describes in superbly characterised detail the people and the problems involved in this unusual and difficult work, which was to play such a vital role in the Allied victory.

""

""Immediately after the war in Europe ended, Noel Annan was seconded to the British Zone in defeated Germany to help rebuild the country which he and his colleagues had so recently been working to destroy. Germany's cities were in ruins, its people starving and demoralized, its industry smashed. Britain was changing enemies: from being the ally of the Western Powers, Soviet Russia now became a foe, and Annan got to know the new generation of German politicians who were to bring about the economic miracle that led to the country's renaissance. His account of this pivotal of European history is both fascinating in itself and of considerable importance to our understanding of Europe as it is today.

""

""'Compact, critical, stimulating . . . obligatory reading for all contemporary historians.' Asa Briggs, "Financial Times"

""

""'Nothing he has written is more fascinating. . . As history written by a participant, the book succeeds triumphantly.' John Grigg, "Evening Standard "

""

"'"A quite splendid example of how personal reminiscence can enrich historical understanding in the hands of a gifted writer.' Raymond Carr, Spectator

In this collection of remarkable biographical portraits, the great essayist and intellectual historian Isaiah Berlin brings to life a wide range of prominent twentieth-century thinkers, politicians, and writers. These include Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Chaim Weizmann, Albert Einstein, Virginia Woolf, Aldous Huxley, Boris Pasternak, and Anna Akhmatova. With the exception of Roosevelt, Berlin met them all, and he knew many of them well. Other figures recalled here include the Zionist Yitzhak Sadeh, the U.S. Supreme Court judge Felix Frankfurter, the classicist and wit Maurice Bowra, the philosopher J. L. Austin, and the literary critic Edmund Wilson. For this edition, ten new pieces have been added, including portraits of David Ben-Gurion, Maynard and Lydia Keynes, and Stephen Spender, as well as Berlin's autobiographical reflections on Jewish Oxford and his Oxford undergraduate years. Rich and enlightening, "Personal Impressions" is a vibrant demonstration of Berlin's belief that ideas truly live only through people.

"Changing Enemies is one of the last accounts we shall have by a witness to some of the high-level decision making during the war and its immediate aftermath. . . . Lord Annan's book valuably points to the contribution to German democracy that was distinctively British." Michael R. Beschloss, New York Times Book Review"In this crackling tale, former British intelligence officer Annan offers an insider's view of the military espionage that helped the Allies win the war against Hitler. . . . He vividly describes power struggles among the Allied forces occupying Germany, his work in guiding post-Nazi Germany toward multi-party democracy, and] his friendship with Konrad Adenauer." Publishers Weekly"A graceful and crystal style like Noel Annan's, all but absent from most contemporary political and historical literature, is enough to awaken an American reader's slumbering literary Anglophilia." David Mehegan, Boston Globe"One of the best books ever written about military intelligence during World War II." William Roger Louis, University of Texas, and Fellow of St. Antony's College, Oxford"