This is apainful review for me to write, as I admire many of Berlins writings. However, this book does little more than to reveal Berlins inability to comprehend Christian mysticism or religous belief. Hamann scholars(and one of my best friends is a Hamann scholar) are almost unanimous in dismissing Berlins book. Hamann was not "stupid" ( such well known intellectual lightweights as Goethe,Kant, Kierkegaard and Hegel regarded him as a genius.)nor was he an 'irrationalist', unless it is "rational' to worship "reason". Yes, Hamann questioned many of the shibboleths of progressive, enlightened "humanism"..they could stand some criticism. To suggest some sort of genealogical linkage between Hamann and the Third Reich is, to say the least,absurd. At least one could hope that some reader might turn from reading Berlins little essay and turn to Hamanns writings, in all their wonderful strangeness, or at even better to hunt down Ronald Gregor Smith fascinating, out of print book, J.G. Hamann,Philosopher of christian Existence, or Gwen Griffith Dickson scholarly, but frightfully expensive, Hamanns Meta-Critique of Reason. Let me just say in closing that Michael Oakeshott had a point when he called Isaiah Berlin "A veritable Pagannini of Ideas."