His name is synonymous with genius. His work helped shape the twentieth century and point the way toward the next. In the more than forty years since his death, Albert Einstein has continued to intrigue and inspire new generations. Now, in the first full-scale biography of Einstein to be published in some twenty years, acclaimed author Denis Brian probes the private, public, and scientific personas of the enigmatic man behind the legend.

For two decades, Denis Brian pored over the Einstein archives and conducted extensive interviews with the scientist's friends and associates. In the process, he discovered a wealth of absorbing new information, much of it previously withheld by those closest to Einstein - including Helen Dukas, his personal secretary, and Otto Nathan, the executor of Einstein's estate. What emerges in Brian's brilliantly drawn life of Einstein is a down-to-earth and always compelling figure.

Exploring this staggering legacy in conversation with many of Einstein's contemporaries, Denis Brian penetrates the veil of formulas, theories, and experiments to expand our understanding of their meaning. With incisive, intimate detail, he recreates the world in which Einstein worked, in solitude and with others, revered by his assistants and enjoying warm relationships with other physicists.

Also included in Brian's comprehensive portrait are the FBI's investigation of Einstein's alleged communist connections, as well as his efforts on behalf of Europe's Jews during Hitler's rise to power, and his ardent support of the formation of the state of Israel.