Einstein: a Life by Denis Brian (John Wiley, £11.95 in UK)
Considering that the Theory of Relativity is scarcely something which can be understood and absorbed without a good deal of cerebral effort, it is remarkable how Einstein became such a hero for the Common Man, particularly in democratic America. It shows that in the mid-century, when faith in science was riding high and faith in traditional religion was failing, peopled wanted secular rather than religious saints.
Einstein was idealised and even etherealised by the media into a kind of gentle, omniscient father-figure, a Hollywood cut-out. The reality was rather different; he was - as he admitted himself without cant - rather a bad husband (married twice) and father, he was a dedicated womaniser, he was often self-centred and demanding, though his devotion to his science was absolute and unconditional.
Einstein's Germany was intellectually energetic and seething with ideas, until Hitler began to pull down the blinds and as a Jew he knew that it was time to go; America welcomed him warmly and admiringly, even if his pro-Communist stance made him unpopular in the post-war, MacCarthyite period. Though he disliked the official trappings of fame and success, and his personal shyness made him recoil from publicity, he was free with his public pronouncements on politics and other non-scientific matters, so that his vocal leftism made the FBI for years suspect him of dealings with the Soviet Union.
Science apart, his chief passions seem to have included violin-playing and sailing a small boat and, of course, women. His detachment from the ordinary human emotions and concerns made some people think him almost inhuman, yet he sometimes went well out of his way to help colleagues and friends. Much new material appears to have gone into this book, which is sometimes over-populist in its approach but deeply informative.