Einstein in Bohemia (Princeton University Press), by Michael D. Gordin

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Although in later years, Albert Einstein recalled his 16 months in Prague (1911-1912) with fondness, his biographers have dismissed his sojourn as an inconsequential interlude. Michael D. Gordin comes to two contrary conclusions. Reading Einstein’s correspondence from Prague, Gordin shows that the great physicist was in a grumpy mood toward the city’s Czech majority and—while remarking occasionally on Prague’s “gone to seed beauty”—seems to have taken little interest in his surroundings. He was preoccupied with the larger cosmos; working out his theories of relativity, he published a dozen papers while in Prague. And yet, Gordin concedes, “Einstein left Prague as he had come without a workable theory of relativity.”

Einstein in Bohemia is fascinating even if its thesis is ultimately less than convincing. Gordin, a Princeton history professor, writes well and with well-chosen details on the history and meaning—the ethnic tensions—of the city of Kafka and the Golem. However, he has trouble mustering enough facts to support the assertion that Einstein’s brief tenure as physics professor at Prague’s German University was epochal. The most Gordin can find is that his teaching load was so undemanding that he had time to think—to lay ideas that became steppingstones to the conclusions he eventually adopted.

Einstein in Bohemia is most interesting for its detailed examination of academic and scientific politics in German Central Europe and the question of Einstein’s identity. Literally stateless earlier in life, Einstein became both a citizen of Switzerland and the U.S.; he may also have been a citizen of Germany and Austria-Hungary (the record is unclear). He was also a Jew in German Europe. Gordin handles the theme of “belonging” with great nuance and understanding.