I enjoy reading, that shouldn't be a surprise to those who know me. Earlier this week, I just completed Walter Isaacson's book Einstein: His Life and Universe. The book that I read prior to this one was David McCullough's John Adams, with the disclaimer that I didn't realize that it was a miniseries on HBO until about three minutes ago. Both books are comparable in length, and are written by well-known authors that have a degree of "popularity" to them. But that's about where the similarities end.
The book on Adams was a tough read for me, largely because I like to understand everything that is going on in a book, but also because I'm trying to remember what I read the last time I picked up the book four days prior. But with that self-induced problem notwithstanding, it was well written and immensely informative. Adams is certainly a character from the Revolutionary Era that deserves more credit than he is ever given. His infamous temper notwithstanding, he was selfless in his work for the infant nation, and far more prudent (frugal?) in life than Jefferson. Always interesting to see the accusations of being a Tory directed at Adams, when Jefferson is far more dependent on the "luxuries" afforded to royalty. This book provides a very clear sense of the world at that point in time, especially the difficulties of travel for even the simplest (by today's standards) of journeys. Also interesting to find that some of the same divides in policy that started germinating around his time in office are the same ones wrestled with today.
The Einstein book, however, I was disappointed in. I was also disappointed (again) in the NYTimes Bestseller list, which this book spent time as the #1 entry. It was an easier read, but largely because it seemed to repeat itself so often. So much time was spent stating (and re-stating) the obvious, and so little time given to the other characters that make appearances in his book, that one can't get a sense for the EVENTS transpiring around his life. Niels Bohr shows up several times in the book, but the long-running debates between Bohr and Einstein were discussed almost as an afterthought, and with little interest.
Perhaps it is the result of Einstein's legacy in our popular American psyche that I was as let down as I was, but I don't think so. While I haven't read many other contemporary biographies (Theodore Roosevelt being the closest), other "larger than life" figures are often painted more fully and completely than this re-hashed pile of garbage.
The one solitary nugget in this biography that I did find interesting was an unfinished letter Einstein wrote to his son, Hans Albert, on December 28, 1954:
The book on Adams was a tough read for me, largely because I like to understand everything that is going on in a book, but also because I'm trying to remember what I read the last time I picked up the book four days prior. But with that self-induced problem notwithstanding, it was well written and immensely informative. Adams is certainly a character from the Revolutionary Era that deserves more credit than he is ever given. His infamous temper notwithstanding, he was selfless in his work for the infant nation, and far more prudent (frugal?) in life than Jefferson. Always interesting to see the accusations of being a Tory directed at Adams, when Jefferson is far more dependent on the "luxuries" afforded to royalty. This book provides a very clear sense of the world at that point in time, especially the difficulties of travel for even the simplest (by today's standards) of journeys. Also interesting to find that some of the same divides in policy that started germinating around his time in office are the same ones wrestled with today.
The Einstein book, however, I was disappointed in. I was also disappointed (again) in the NYTimes Bestseller list, which this book spent time as the #1 entry. It was an easier read, but largely because it seemed to repeat itself so often. So much time was spent stating (and re-stating) the obvious, and so little time given to the other characters that make appearances in his book, that one can't get a sense for the EVENTS transpiring around his life. Niels Bohr shows up several times in the book, but the long-running debates between Bohr and Einstein were discussed almost as an afterthought, and with little interest.
Perhaps it is the result of Einstein's legacy in our popular American psyche that I was as let down as I was, but I don't think so. While I haven't read many other contemporary biographies (Theodore Roosevelt being the closest), other "larger than life" figures are often painted more fully and completely than this re-hashed pile of garbage.
The one solitary nugget in this biography that I did find interesting was an unfinished letter Einstein wrote to his son, Hans Albert, on December 28, 1954:
God's own country becomes stranger and stranger, but somehow they [Americans] manage to return to normality. Everything -- even lunacy -- is mass produced here. But everything goes out of fashion very quickly.
Posted by:
Eric on March 21, 2009 at 10:54 am EDT
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