I.F. Stone: A Portrait is not really a biography. It is, as it's subtitle suggests, a series of conversations between Stone and author Patner. The book's short chapters are basically Stone's ideas on a wide variety of topics ranging from the ancient Greeks to Free Speech to the Cold War to the Reagan administration. Some of the topics were interesting to me, but not all. The conversations do, however, give the reader a fair insight of what Stone was like. Of course, the book presupposes that the reader knows something of Stone, a somewhat radical journalist during a large part of the 20th century. (A brief biography is included near the end of the book.) It would seem that Patner's main purpose in writing the book is to give Stone the recognition that he has been denied in the world of journalism. According to Patner, Stone was his own man, suspicious of and distrusting both of the mainstream political parties in this country. Although Stone was something of a radical, many people depended on Stone's interpretation of the news in his own weekly publication. He saw the world for them.

For those interested in journalism and/or familiar with Stone, Patner's book will most likely be very interesting. As a way to discover who I.F. Stone was, reading the book is sort of like searching for your lost car keys on a football field at night without a flashlight.