As she did for Giants of Science Leonardo, Newton, Freud and Curie before him, Krull delivers a splendidly humane biography of that gold standard of brilliance, Albert Einstein. The narrative ably contextualizes his youth against the backdrop of a rapidly evolving technological society and within a secular Jewish family that valued education, showing that his single-minded pursuit of raw thought developed naturally. Drawing extensively on Einstein’s writings, she presents a fully rounded portrait of a man whose genius combined with a bad temper and arrogance, to the detriment of his own professional advancement, not to mention his relationships with women and his children. Using concrete examples, the author brings such mind-bending notions as his General Theory of Relativity within the grasp of child readers. In following his career, she also makes readers aware of the intimate connections between politics—both academic and international—and science. Her vocabulary is, as always, both playful and collegial: “His ideas made your head spin, in a down-the-rabbit-hole, Alice in Wonderland sort of way.” Another standout in a uniformly stellar series; here’s hoping Einstein isn’t the last Giant. (Biography. 10-14)
