by Walter Isaacson
Copyright (c) 2007.
This book, based upon recent public releases of Einstein’s private letters, provides a more intimate portrait of Einstein than has been possible before recent years. Einstein’s prowess as an intellectual and a scholar is well-known. His closest relationships – with his sons, both of his wives, and his daughters – has not been well-known.
What do we discover from this in-depth look at the man who helped set the course of the twentieth century? We see a man engrossed in his studies of physics; we see a man who cared deeply about the people around him; we see a man who is sometimes aloof to interpersonal affects as well as to geopolitics; we see a man who is warm yet deeply wedded to his theoretical physics work; we see a man thoroughly defeated when it came to quantum mechanics; we see a man who is, in many respects, like all of us.
This man of 112 Mercer Street in Princeton taught the world the rules of the universe. Then he taught the world more deeply by his manner. He fought for what he thought was right to the end and stubbornly refused to admit defeat in the realm of world government or the nature of reality. This portrait provides us with intimate access to a genius – intimate access that, until 2007, was simply not possible. For that alone (besides being a well-written account from one of our best English-language historians), it deserves our attention.