SOURCE: “The Exceptional William James,” in New York Review of Books, November 10, 1983, pp. 3-4, 6.

In the following review of A Stroll with William James, Kazin discusses the development and distinctive qualities of James's philosophical thought.

William James, dead these seventy-three years, is a living and much-cherished figure to Jacques Barzun, whose sparkling appreciation [in A Stroll with William James] honors his “mentor,” a man and thinker without a describable lapse who “knows better than anyone else the material and spiritual country I am traveling through.” Unlike all other philosophers Barzun likes to “read in,” James's

ideas, his words, his temperament speak to me with intimacy as well as force. Communication is direct; … he “does me good.” I find him visibly and testably right—right in intuition, range of considerations, sequence of reasons, and fully rounded power of expression. He is for me the most inclusive mind I can...