Einstein in Berlin

by Thomas Levenson

Book Overview

In a book that is both biography and the most exciting form of history, here are eighteen years in the life of a man, Albert Einstein, and a city, Berlin, that were in many ways the defining years of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 055310344X
• ISBN13: 9780553103441
• Release Date: April 2003
• Publisher: Bantam
• Length: 496 Pages
• Weight: 1.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.5" x 1.5" x 6.4"

Customer Reviews

Einstein biography by a gifted storyteller

I selected to read this book after having seen the author Thomas Levenson speak about it on the CSPAN network---and I was not disappointed. I must say that I found his historical expertise of late 19th and early 20th century Germany and Middle Europe a most pleasant and well-told inclusion. Indeed, the author neatly and ably encapsulates the pivotal events that spanned Einstein's life: the Wilhelmine Reich blundering its way into the First World War, mid- and post-war hardships in Germany, the brief Weimar democracy and its cultural oasis that was Berlin of the 1920s---and all of this set against a background the sometimes clandestine sometimes overt German anti-semitism that preceded the rise of Hitler. And we meet the revealed Einstein: scientific genius who was, by any measure, the successor of Newton; the courageous pacifist; the unfaithful husband; the negligent father; and the Jew, who, though cynical of traditional religious observance, is yet stubbornly loyal to his people. This volume also provides, for the non-technical reader, a good understanding of relativity and quantum theory, written in as plain English as possible. All in all, a job well done.

A Necessary Compendium

I left this book on my shelves for two years because I thought that Bram Pais said everything that needed to be said about Einstein's physics, and that Albrecht Fo"lsing said everything that needed to be said about Einstein's career. Indeed, Levenson's book supercedes neither. Nor is it the most complete about German politics before the First World War, or Germany in the First World War, nor the best about the hyperinflation, nor the most detailed about the Weimar Republic nor the rise of the Nazis. However, Levenson brings these disparate aspects of Einstein and his times in Berlin together in a masterful way. Furthermore, Levenson has flashes of insight - into Einstein's detached character and the havoc it wreaked with his intimates, into Einstein's Judaism, into the brutality of German forces in the first world war carrying forward into the FreiKorps, which are invaluable. He has an eye for significant detail - the drastic fall in beer consumption during the Crash, the games which children played reflecting the casual violence and the high unemployment of Berlin during the Crash. The dulness of my own words shows the extent to which I lack Levenson's talent. I would say that Levenson's book on Einstein would be a good place to start with Einstein's work and life. Pais and Fo"lsing would then follow for the really interested. One caution: Levenson's biography is interesting but more than a little dismal: Einstein was hard on his family or families, and this is portrayed against a backdrop of war, starvation, antiSemitic hatred, violence, and social disintegration leading to more war. Unfortunately the portrayal is almost certainly accurate.

What History Should Be: Truth, Illuminating the Present

Albert Einstein. Adolf Hitler. Germany. The two iconic figures of the 20th century, shaped and nurtured, alternately embraced and rejected by the one nation. Posthumous competitors for the honor of TIME's "person of the century", Levenson's book details the progress and transformation of both men and their nation through the critical period from 1914 to 1932, while Einstein lived in Berlin. The portrayal of Einstein here is of a great but flawed man, not quite the usual hagiography, despite the imagery reminiscent of the Christmas story at the start. Why did Einstein come to Berlin, the heart of Prussia, after renouncing Germany for Switzerland as a teenager? Why did Germany's extreme climate of militarism not repel him, at this time immediately before the great war? Levenson details the scientific inducements: German physics at the time was unparalleled, and Einstein in Berlin could enjoy the company of the established Max Planck and younger colleagues like Max Born and Lise Meitner, later Heisenberg and many others. But the offer of money and prestige was perhaps as important - Einstein would direct his own "Kaiser Wilhelm" institute of physics. Official Germany wanted to claim Einstein as its own, and Einstein, with just a touch of patriotism, accepted. Levenson portrays those war years, and the Weimar Republic that followed, with great poignancy. The German people were itching to prove their greatness. Planck and other scientists declared their strong support for the war, and even Einstein tried to help with research on aircraft and more significantly on the gyrocompass. Einstein's close friend Fritz Haber was the Edward Teller of chemical weaponry, developing lethal gases in the same building where Einstein worked out general relativity. All of Europe suffered as the war was prolonged; Einstein himself falling ill to poor nutrition in 1918. Levenson shows how the replacement of the Kaiser by a new republic led by "social democrats", who acquiesced to the Versailles Treaty, divided Germany and would soon threaten the world again. On one side of the divide were those on the left, including Einstein: pacifists, Jews, intellectuals, seemingly now in control. On the other side, the right wing and the remnant of the armed forces; those who still thought the war could have been won, who decried Germany's fall. Levenson tracks the growth of Einstein's celebrity status, starting in 1919 with the confirmation of General Relativity. The worldwide press, stimulated by the war years and the new movie industry, pounced on the photogenic and genial scientist, and Einstein did not shy away. Levenson discusses Einstein's stunning contributions to physics in reasonably brief, accurate, and generally accessible terms. Even though his most important work predated 1914, Einstein still helped discover Bose-Einstein condensation, raised awareness of quantum problems, and founded general relativity theory and the theoretical basis for cosmology during his stay

Einstein's genius and personal flaws

There is a view of human history that believes that the trends are so strong, that no one person can significantly alter what is destined to occur. An opposing view is that there are so many potential paths that the differences that drive movement from one path to another are very small. Not only can one person provide the impetus from one path to another, but also the differences between the paths can be enormous. This book is primarily about Albert Einstein, one who had a dramatic effect on history. His development of new physics in the first decade of the twentieth century completely altered our view of the universe and was revolutionary. The best measure of how revolutionary is the oft-repeated statement of astronomer Arthur Eddington. When told that he was one of only three people in the world who understood relativity, Eddington seemed puzzled. He was asked if he disagreed with the statement and he responded, "No, I was just trying to think of who the third person would be." Such revolutionary ideas that describe nature will eventually be discovered, but it is clear that Einstein was decades ahead of everyone else in his understanding of the universe. Another one of the unforgettable people who changed the course of history is a secondary topic of the book. That person is of course Adolph Hitler, whose pathological Nazi movement eventually forced the Jewish Einstein from Germany. In 1913, as a consequence of Einstein's incredible work while a patent clerk in Switzerland, Walther Nernst and Max Planck went to visit Einstein. Their purpose was to offer him the best scientific job in the world, a professorship with no teaching responsibilities at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin. The offer was an incredible one, but it was fitting, given Einstein's stature. He accepted and arrived in Berlin shortly before the outbreak of World War I. Outside of his traveling, he stayed there until forced out when Hitler rose to power. This is a chronicle of Einstein, but it is also a history of Germany in the years from 1914 until 1932. While the events in Europe as a consequence of the rise of Hitler are well known, the situation in Germany during those years is not well known. Few people are aware of the social tension due to deprivation that took place in Germany from 1914 until the rise of Hitler. Near-starvation was universal in the last two years of the First World War, and there was chaos immediately after. The hyperinflation of the early twenties was incredible, it is hard to believe that things were so bad that the exchange rate was one Trillion marks to the dollar. After a few years of relative stability, the onset of the depression at the end of the 1920's once again reduced a large percentage of the population to destitution. There are documented cases of people growing rich by killing people and marketing their flesh as pork. No wonder so many people were willing to surrender their freedom to starve to death and their political freedom

Well worth reading

Einstein in Berlin needs no hype. It's an elegantly written narration of Einstein's years in Berlin--years that were vital to his development as a great scientist and humanist, and to Berlin and Germany's descent from post-World-War-I chaos to the madness of the Holocaust. It's not a book for someone wanting yet another idealized portrait of Einstein. But it's a must-read for anyone seeking a genuine understanding Einstein as a man, as a scientist, and as a remarkably influential figure during a critical historical period. Levenson has produced an insightful biography and a sophisticated history, and has woven them together masterfully. Robert Adler, Ph.D., author of Science Firsts: From the Creation of Science to the Science of Creation (John Wiley & Sons, September 2002).