Jurgen Neffe holds a doctorate in biochemistry from Aachen University and is a recipient of the Egon Erwin Kisch Award, the most prestigious award for print journalism in Germany.

• Translator's PrefacePrologue: The Immortal: Einstein's Secret1. His Second Birth: The Fateful Year 19192. How Albert Became Einstein: The Psychological Makeup of a Genius3. "A New Era!": From Industrialist's Son to Inventor4. Of Dwarfs and Giants: A Brief History of Science, According to Einstein5. The Burden of Inheritance: Einstein Detectives in Action6. "Elsa or Ilse": The Physicist and the Women7. The Miraculous Path to the Miraculous Year: Einstein's Angels8. Squaring the Light: Why Einstein Had to Discover the Theory of Relativity9. Why Is the Sky Blue? Einstein—A Career10. "Dear Boys . . . Your Papa": The Drama of the Brilliant Father11. Anatomy of a Discovery: How Einstein Found the General Theory of Relativity12. Lambda Lives: Einstein, "Chief Engineer of the Universe"13. Spacetime Quakes: The Theory of Relativity Put to the Test14. His Best Foe: Einstein, Germany, and Politics15. "I Am Not a Tiger": Einstein, the Human Side16. A Jew Named Albert: His God Was a Principle17. The End Justifies the Doubts: Einstein and Quantum Theory18. Of the Magnitude of Failure: The Quest for the Unified Theory19. From Barbaria to Dollaria: Einstein's America20. "People Are a Bad Invention": Einstein, the Atomic Bomb, McCarthy, and the EndNotesBibliographyAcknowledgmentsIndex

[Einstein's] are some of the most powerful ideas in all of science... Neffe does an especially thorough job tracing their origins in Einstein's early obsessions, and he shows how completely the latest cosmic theories are constructed atop the general theory of relativity. New York Times Book Review You would never know you were reading a translation. Converted into evocative, idiomatic English by Shelley Frisch, the book abandons the traditional chronological framework to make oblique swipes across Einstein's timeline-like those bullets flying through a train. Los Angeles Times Coupling insights into Einstein's character with clear descriptions of the physicist's groundbreaking research, Neffe creates a fascinating portrait of... one of the most intriguing figures of the 20th century. Publishers Weekly Neffe's biography reads more like an American novel. The language is fresh and lively-a nod to Neffe's English translator, Shelley Frisch. San Diego Union-Tribune A comprehensive, sympathetic, and very readable portrait of the man, the celebrity, the scientist, and the theories that transformed physics and the modern world... Stellar research and prose combine in a splendid biography of physics' most luminous supernova. Kirkus Reviews (starred review)