August 26, 2019
“Britain is the country that made Einstein into worldwide phenomenon,” proposes prolific science writer Robinson (Earth-Shattering Events: Earthquakes, Nations and Civilization) in this vivid look at how the U.K. affected the German-born physicist’s life and thinking. According to Robinson, the young Einstein regarded Britain as the cradle of theoretical physics. However, physicists there didn’t warm to his groundbreaking theory of general relativity until observations of a 1919 solar eclipse by some of his British supporters confirmed it with hard photographic evidence, making Einstein world-famous in the process. Robinson brings to life the period of Einstein’s initial celebrity, when he was freely feted throughout Europe. Throughout the 1920s, he visited England regularly, lecturing at Oxford, meeting political activists, and visiting historic sites. With the rise of Nazi power in Germany, fears grew for Einstein’s safety there, and, in 1933, British hosts brought him to live in a “holiday hut” in rural Norfolk, where Einstein hiked, played violin, and lived, he said, “like a hermit,” in “admirable solitude”—albeit protected by shotgun-wielding bodyguards. Shortly after, he decamped for Princeton, N.J., where he lived for the rest of his life. Readers interested in Einstein will enjoy reading about this lesser-known chapter in his life.