Len Lira's Reviews > The World As I See It

An Intellectual Giant in many Disciplines

I must admit that the only thing I had read of Einstein was, E=mc2. Nonetheless, this collection of his essays and letters demonstrates that he was brilliant in fields afar from physics. His discussion of politics (both domestic and international), economics of nations, the moral decay of pre-WWII Germany, and the interrelationships of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam were all acute for his era when the internet did not exist (meaning he had to be very well read), and prescient for our modern day issues.

The one disheartening thing I found in his letters was that he openly despised men who served in the military. Einstein asserts that such a man is despicable because rather than resort to tools of the mind to resolve conflict, they resort to the violence and the baser nature of man as animal. Being a long serving professional soldier and scholar, I was crestfallen that a man I so admired, would demonstrate his despise for me from his grave. Regardless, acknowledging Einstein’s pacifism and the German military ethic of the era in which Einstein was familiar, I at least understood his sentiment.

The book remains a good read which I recommend to others. It's analysis of all the topics discussed above are short. It serves as a book that one can read in one setting, pick up and put down for later reading, or return to again and again for future reference.