Do we need another book about Einstein? Doug Brown’s review of Walter Isaacon’s Einstein: His Life and Universe (April, 2007) says the answer is yes:
New letters are brought to light every few years, and archives are made available to scholars that had previously been closed. Isaacson’s Einstein takes advantage of some newly accessible letters and documents unavailable to previous biographers. Einstein also benefits from an author who is an excellent writer, researcher, and collaborator.
He summarizes:
Einstein was many things: physicist, mathematician (it’s a myth that he did poorly in math at school), revolutionary, socialist, pacifist, humanist. That’s a whole lot of –ists to keep straight, but Isaacson does an excellent job of presenting a complete picture of Einstein as all of the above and more. If you have already read an Einstein biography or two, or have even read a few popular books on relativity, don’t make the mistake of thinking there’s nothing here for you. Isaacson’s engaging Einstein is recommended for anyone interested in Herr Professor’s physics and philosophy.
Another review by Erik Spanberg also shows this book is needed:
Untangling Einstein’s discoveries and accomplishments require a bit of genius in itself for the scientifically challenged among us. After all, as Isaacson points out, Einstein came to symbolize the perception that modern physics operated at a level far above the heads of most people, a stark contrast to the earlier, more accessible cause-and-effect breakthroughs ushered in by Galileo, Isaac Newton, and Benjamin Franklin, among others. While everyone has at least a fuzzy knowledge of Einstein — the shock of unkempt hair, the use of his name as a synonym for genius and an enduring, iconic pop-culture familiarity — much of his basic biography is at least unexamined and probably unknown, as well, by the mainstream audience Isaacson’s book targets.
A swarm of new Einstein’s videos were produced recently; now it is time for the updated books …
