PORTRAITS FROM MEMORY

by Bertrand Russell ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

A stimulating sampling of the Russell writings, both reminiscent and philosophical, stems partially from a series of talks given in recent months over the BBC, but contains much that is new and of interest- to an audience widened by Russell's ability to popularize his themes with skill and dignity. The subject matter is widely varying. The main body of essays-Portraits from Memory comprises a series of engaging analytical sketches of writers and philosophers Russell has known both personally and through their work and whose characterizations, from the curiously fascistic beliefs of D. H. Lawrence to the studied concern of John Stuart Mill, give us added insight to the mind of the author himself. Broadly speaking, the other two themes in the book are Russell's own life and work. Often amusing and always readable, he writes of the different phases of his own youth and education and these outline the mental steps that lead to the formation of his own philosophy. The further essays, on mathematics as a bright and shining tool, on philosophy's function of broadening the intellectual imagination, on politics that believes the mass of men to be proportionately nice or mean as they are successful or unsuccessful, on the world of George Orwell's 1984 which he views as an increasing threat-coagulate to form a solid ethical system that in turn creates its own points of virtue. Witty and brilliant, these form an open faced philosophy that reveals itself even more clearly through style.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1956

Categories: NONFICTION