Suppose $X$ and $Y$ are Banach spaces whose dual spaces are isometrically isomorphic. It is certainly true that $X$ and $Y$ need not be isometrically isomorphic, but must it be true that there is a continuous (not necessarily isometric) isomorphism of $X$ onto $Y$?



Isomorphisms of Banach Spaces 
Indeed, $\ell\_1$ provides a strong counterexample. As noted by Matt, the spaces C(X), where X is countable and compact, provide nonisomorphic Banach spaces whose duals are isomorphic to $\ell\_1$. If X is countable and compact (and Hausdorff, of course!) then X is homeomorphic to a closed ordinal interval [0, *a*] (equipped with its natural order topology) for some countable ordinal a; this result is known as the Mazurkiewicz-Sierpinski theorem. About 50 years ago Bessaga and Pelczynski showed that if *a* and *b* are infinite countable ordinals and *a* < *b*, then C([0, *a*]) is isomorphic to C([0, *b*]) if and only if *b* < *a*^\*w\*, where *w* denotes the first infinite ordinal. Thus C([0, *w*]) is in fact isomorphic to C([0, *w*^2]), contrary to Gerald's assertion above. Moreover, the least infinite ordinal *b* such that C([0, *b*]) is not isomorphic to C([0, *w*]) is *b* = *w^w*. Combining the Mazurkiewicz-Sierpinski result with the Bessaga=Pelczynski result, one has that each space C(X), where X is countable and compact, is isomorphic to C([0, *w*^(*w*^\*a\*)]) for a *unique* countable ordinal *a*. In particular, there are uncountably many nonisomorphic Banach spaces whose duals are isometrically isomorphic to $\ell\_1$, namely the spaces C([0, *w*^(*w*^\*a\*)]), where *a* varies over the set of countable ordinals.


$\ell\_1$ has other preduals too. For example, a 1972 paper from the Israel Journal of Mathematics by Yoav Benyamini and Joram Lindenstrauss exhibits a Banach space E whose dual is isometrically isomorphic to $\ell\_1$, but E is not isomorphic to any space of the form C(X).


Although Gerald's assertion that the Cantor-Bendixson rank distinguishes between spaces of continuous functions on countable compact spaces is not correct, there is a rank/index that does distinguish between the isomorphism classes of these spaces, namely the *Szlenk index*. In fact the Szlenk index may be used to prove the 'only if' direction of the Bessaga-Pelczysnki result.


I strongly recommend Chapter 2 of the book *Biorthogonal Systems in Banach Spaces* by Hajek et al if you want to read about the Szlenk index and a proof of the Bessaga-Pelczynski result. That book also contains a sketch proof of the Mazurkiewicz-Sierpinski theorem; for a full account of that theorem I recommend Section 8 of Semadeni's classic book *Banach spaces of continuous functions*.


If you want a different example, I think the James-tree space *JT* would do. *JT* is separable but its dual is (at least I think so - it is worth checking!) isometrically isomorphic to the dual of the direct sum $\*JT \oplus H\*$, where *H* is Hilbert space of dimension equal to the cardinality of the continuum. In particular, $\*JT \oplus H\*$ cannot be isomorphic to *JT* because they have different density characters, but their duals are isometrically isomorphic. If you want to check the details of this example consult Chapter 13 of the Albiac and Kalton book recommended above by Matthew.


