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Abraham Pais's 'Subtle is the Lord...' is the definitive biography of Albert Einstein. Timothy Ferris, in The New York Times Book Review, called it "the biography of Einstein he himself would have liked best," adding that "it is a work against which future scientific biographies will be measured." As a respected physicist himself, Pais was the first biographer to give Einstein's thinking its full due, and as a close friend and associate of Einstein, he could provide an intimate, first-hand account of the life of this great scientist. The result was a national bestseller. Indeed, it was one of The New York Times's Best Books of the Year, and the winner of the 1983 American Book Award for Science.
Now, Pais turns his attention to the great physicist's life outside of science, with an informal, almost kalaidoscopic portrait of Einstein--his personal life and his public persona ("my mythical namesake who has made my life so burdensome"), his scientific contributions, and his thoughts on religion, philosophy, and politics, on Israel and Zionism, on the rise of Nazism and McCarthyism, and on much more. Pais offers a candid look at Einstein's troubled personal life--his two failed marriages, his first child Lieserl, who was born out of wedlock (and of whom all trace has vanished), his estranged son Hans Albert, also a scientist, who felt his father had abandoned the family, and his son Eduard, who gradually descended into madness. Of course, any book on Einstein must touch upon science, and Pais includes several illuminating chapters, one of which offers general readers an accessible explanation of relativity, and another traces the long road to Einstein's Nobel Prize (after being nominated almost every year from 1909 to 1920, he finally won in 1921--not for relativity, but for his work on the photoelectric effect). On the lighter side, Pais includes samples from Einstein's "curiosity file," in which he kept crank letters, marriage proposals, hate mail (one began "You are the prince of idiocy, the count of imbecility, the duke of cretinism, the baron of morons"), and the like. But the heart of the book is the final section, where Pais traces Einstein's life as seen through the media. Here we not only meet Einstein the living legend--receiving the keys to New York City from flamboyant Mayor Jimmy Walker, attending the Hollywood premier of City Lights with Charlie Chaplin--but also witness his extensive involvement in the issues of his day. Much of his commentary is amazingly prescient. In 1933, he said of Nazism: "I cannot understand the passive response of the whole civilized world to this modern barbarism. Does the world not see that Hitler is aiming for war?"
"I can still see Einstein's smile before me," the great physicist Niels Bohr said several years after Einstein's death, "a very special smile...knowing, humane, and friendly." In Einstein Lived Here, this more than anything else is the Einstein we see--knowing, humane, friendly--a world figure on a par with the greats of his age who could still ask "Why is it that nobody understands me and everybody likes me."

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CONTENTS
List of illustrations = xv
1 'In the shadow of Albert Einstein' = 1
  1 Introduction = 1
  2 Some background = 3
  3 Mileva and Albert, from first acquaintance to the arrival of Lieserl = 6
  4 Lieserl = 9
  5 Marriage. Hans Albert. What became of Lieserl? = 11
  6 Of Albert, Mileva, and the theory of relativity = 14
  7 Separation. Divorce. Einstein remarries = 16
  8 Tete = 23
  9 Conclusion = 25
2 Reflections on Bohr and Einstein = 31
3 De Broglie, Einstein, and the birth of the matter wave concept = 47
4 Einstein, Newton, and success = 55
5 A mini-briefing on relativity, for the layman = 59
6 How Einstein got the Nobel Prize = 63
7 Helen Dukas, in memoriam = 79
8 Samples from Die Komische Mappe = 85
  1 Preamble = 85
  2 Envelopes = 86
  3 Letters from the Berlin period = 86
  4 Letters from the Princeton period = 88
9 The Indian connection: Tagore and Gandhi = 99
  1 Introducing Tagore and Gandhi = 99
  2 Einstein and Tagore = 102
  3 Einstein and Gandhi = 109
10 Einstein on Religion and Philosophy = 112
  1 A Fiddler on the Roof = 112
  2 Upbringing = 114
  3 Judaism in Einstein's early career = 115
  4 'A religious feeling of a special kind' = 117
  5 Science and religion = 119
  6 Was Einstein a philosopher? = 122
  7 Acquaintance with philosophical writings = 123
  8 Physics and philosophy: relativity theory = 125
  9 Physics and philosophy: quantum theory = 128
  10 Envoi. Einstein's philosophy = 130
11 Einstein and the press = 137
  1 Introduction = 138
  2 1902-19 = 139
    1 Berne = 139
    2 Z u ·· rich = 140
    3 Prague = 141
    4 Z u ·· rich = 141
    5 Berlin = 142
  3 November 1919: Einstein becomes a world figure = 145
  4 What caused Einstein's mass appeal? = 148
  5 The early nineteen-twenties = 151
    1 Changes in style = 151
    2 Once an oracle, always an oracle = 151
    3 Expository writing = 152
    4 Signing manifestos = 152
    5 Antisemitic reactions to Einstein = 153
  6 First journey to the United States and Britain = 154
  7 A trip to France = 156
  8 The visit to the Orient = 158
    1 The assassination of Rathenau = 158
    2 Visit to China = 159
    3 Five weeks in Japan = 159
    4 The Nobel Prize and the press = 160
  9 The visit to the Holy Land = 161
    1 Twelve days in Palestine = 161
    2 Einstein's first public comments on Zionism = 162
    3 The return home via three weeks in Spain = 164
  10 Travels to South America = 164
  11 Political involvements: the German years = 165
    1 During the First World War = 165
    2 The Weimar Republic = 169
    3 The League of Nations = 170
    4 Varia = 173
    5 Militant pacifism: Thou shall not bear arms = 174
  12 More varia, 1928-32 = 178
    1 Unified field theory = 178
    2 The fiftieth birthday = 179
    3 1930 in Berlin: two addresses, one interview = 180
    4 Einstein on Shaw and vice versa = 181
    5 First trip to the American West = 182
    6 Einstein and Rockefeller = 183
    7 Einstein and Chaplin = 184
    8 The fate of the American Negroes = 185
    9 On physics and physicists = 186
    10 Einstein at a press conference, a sample = 186
  13 In which Einstein finally leaves Europe for good = 187
    1 The rise of Nazism = 187
    2 The second visit to Caltech = 188
    3 Einstein and Freud = 188
    4 December 1932: Einstein leaves Germany forever = 190
    5 28 March-7 October 1933: last European sejour, in Belgium and England = 191
  14 Arrival in the United States = 196
    1 Reception = 196
    2 Settling down in Princeton； induction as U.S. citizen = 198
    3 Political opinions, 1933-1935: Pacifism reconsidered = 202
  15 1933-39: Einstein's first American years in the limelight = 203
  16 About nuclear fission and atomic weapons； and, of course, more varia = 214
    1 The prehistory of the atomic bomb = 214
    2 1939, varia = 216
    3 Einstein and FDR = 217
    4 Varia, 1940-45 = 219
  17 The final decade. Einstein and the Atomic Age = 222
    1 Events of a personal nature: state of health； birthdays； unified field theory； presidency of Israel； honors and awards = 222
    2 Last varia = 227
    3 'The war is won, but peace is not': Einstein on atomic weapons = 229
  18 The final decade. Einstein on civil liberties = 236
  19 Einstein and the Jews. Death of Einstein = 242
  20 To recapitulate = 252
  21 And the show goes on = 255
    1 Post mortems = 255
    2 Coming out of the woodwork = 256
    3 Einstein in the arts； and in advertising = 258
    4 The Centennial = 259
Onomasticon = 275
Subject index = 279