Einstein on Politics: His Private Thoughts and Public Stands on Nationalism, Zionism, War, Peace, and the Bomb
- ISBN-10
- 1400848288
- ISBN-13
- 9781400848287
- Category
- Political Science
- Pages
- 560
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2013-11-10
- Publisher
- Princeton University Press
- Author
- Albert Einstein
Description
The most famous scientist of the twentieth century, Albert Einstein was also one of the century's most outspoken political activists. Deeply engaged with the events of his tumultuous times, from the two world wars and the Holocaust, to the atomic bomb and the Cold War, to the effort to establish a Jewish homeland, Einstein was a remarkably prolific political writer, someone who took courageous and often unpopular stands against nationalism, militarism, anti-Semitism, racism, and McCarthyism. In Einstein on Politics, leading Einstein scholars David Rowe and Robert Schulmann gather Einstein's most important public and private political writings and put them into historical context. The book reveals a little-known Einstein--not the ineffectual and naïve idealist of popular imagination, but a principled, shrewd pragmatist whose stands on political issues reflected the depth of his humanity. Nothing encapsulates Einstein's profound involvement in twentieth-century politics like the atomic bomb. Here we read the former militant pacifist's 1939 letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt warning that Germany might try to develop an atomic bomb. But the book also documents how Einstein tried to explain this action to Japanese pacifists after the United States used atomic weapons to destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki, events that spurred Einstein to call for international control of nuclear technology. A vivid firsthand view of how one of the twentieth century's greatest minds responded to the greatest political challenges of his day, Einstein on Politics will forever change our picture of Einstein's public activism and private motivations.
Get the book
Other editions
-
- 2013-11-10
- 560 pages
- Paperback
- Princeton University Press
-
- 2007
- 523 pages
- Paperback
- Princeton University Press
Similar books
-
Einstein and Twentieth-Century Politics: 'A Salutary Moral Influence'
By Richard CrockattThis volume examines how Einstein and comparable intellectuals sought to exert a 'salutary influence', as Einstein put it in a letter to Freud.
-
The Einstein Dossiers: Science and Politics - Einstein's Berlin Period with an Appendix on Einstein's FBI File
By Siegfried GrundmannSiegfried Grundmann's thorough study of Einstein's participation on a committee of the League of Nations, based on archival research in Geneva, is also new. This book outlines Einstein's image in politics and German science policy.
-
Einstein's Jewish Science: Physics at the Intersection of Politics and Religion
By Steven GimbelThis volume intertwines science, history, philosophy, theology, and politics in fresh and fascinating ways to solve the multifaceted riddle of what religion means - and what it means to science.
-
Neighborhood Defenders: Participatory Politics and America's Housing Crisis
By Katherine Levine Einstein, David M. Glick, Maxwell PalmerBurden, Barry C., David T. Canon, Kenneth R. Mayer, and Donald P. Moynihan. 2013. “Election Laws, Mobilization, and Turnout: The Unanticipated Consequences of Election Reform.” American Journal of Political Science 58(1): 95–109.
-
Albert Einstein: His Influence on Physics, Philosophy and Politics
By Roman U. Sexl, Peter C. AichelburgThe Development of the Theory of Relativity.- Cosmology.- Gravitational Radiation.- Black Holes.- The Black Hole: An Imaginary Conversation with Albert Einstein.- Can Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physical Realty Be Considered Complete.
-
Einstein Before Israel: Zionist Icon Or Iconoclast?
By Ze'ev Rosenkranz"A vivid sense of strangeness": Einstein's path to the Zionist movement -- A different kind of nationalism: Einstein's induction and mobilization into the Zionist movement -- The "prize-winning ox" in "Dollaria": Einstein's fundraising trip ...
-
Einstein, Religion, Politics and Literature-Connecting the Dots
By Lonnie HicksThis book takes a look at all of the major institutions in American society, science, politics, our financial institutions, and literature looking to "connect the dots" as to how American society works, its values and impact upon the ...
-
Einstein's War: How Relativity Triumphed Amid the Vicious Nationalism of World War I
By Matthew StanleySir William Ramsay—the Scottish chemist who, confusingly, received the Nobel Prize for discovering the noble gases—declared that “German ideals are infinitely far removed from the conception of the true man of science.
-
Einstein's Jewish Science: Physics at the Intersection of Politics and Religion
By Steven GimbelThere are some senses, Gimbel claims, in which Jews can find a special connection to E = mc2, and this claim leads to the engaging, spirited debate at the heart of this book.
-
The Ultimate Quotable Einstein
By Albert EinsteinThis is the definitive edition of the hugely popular collection of Einstein quotations that has sold tens of thousands of copies worldwide and been translated into twenty-five languages.