A finely drawn portrait of Einstein's sixteen months in Prague
In the spring of 1911, Albert Einstein moved with his wife and two sons
to Prague, the capital of Bohemia, where he accepted a post as a
professor of theoretical physics. Though he intended to make Prague his
home, he lived there for just sixteen months, an interlude that his
biographies typically dismiss as a brief and inconsequential episode.
Einstein in Bohemia is a spellbinding portrait of the city that
touched Einstein's life in unexpected ways--and of the gifted young
scientist who left his mark on the science, literature, and politics of
Prague.
Michael Gordin's narrative is a masterfully crafted account of a person
encountering a particular place at a specific moment in time. Despite
being heir to almost a millennium of history, Einstein's Prague was a
relatively marginal city within the sprawling Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Yet Prague, its history, and its multifaceted culture changed the
trajectories of Einstein's personal and scientific life. It was here
that his marriage unraveled, where he first began thinking seriously
about his Jewish identity, and where he embarked on the project of
general relativity. Prague was also where he formed lasting friendships
with novelist Max Brod, Zionist intellectual Hugo Bergmann, physicist
Philipp Frank, and other important figures.
Einstein in Bohemia sheds light on this transformative period of
Einstein's life and career, and brings vividly to life a beguiling city
in the last years of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
