Albert Einstein is synonymous with genius. From his remarkable theory of relativity and the famous equation E=mc2 to his concept of a unified field theory, no one has contributed as much to science in the last century. As well as showing how Einstein developed his theories, "Einstein" reveals the man behind the science, from his early years and thought experiments in Germany, to his marriages and children, his role in the development of the Atomic Bomb and his work for Civil Rights groups in the United States. Drawing on new research and documents only recently made available, this book also includes items of rare facsimile memorabilia, to show you more than Einstein's groundbreaking theories. Documents include: postcard sent to Einstein by Mileva Maric, before she became his first wife; a letter written by Fritz Haber in 1911 to Einstein as he worked on his General Theory of Relativity; the telegram sent by Hendrick Lorentz, informing Einstein that his theory of deflection of light by the sun had been confirmed. This confirmed Einstein's principle of relativity; and, the letter Einstein wrote to President Roosevelt in 1939 warning him of the possibility that Germany could develop an atomic bomb.

Einstein: The Life of a Genius

WALTER ISAACSON

Andr Deutsch

this is a well-researched bio, gossipy, but with shrewd assessments

Kissinger: A Biography

Literature & Fiction

Simon&Schuster

"Aspen Policy Books is a series of annual publications that address the United States’ most formidable and pressing national security and foreign policy challenges. This edition is a collection of papers commissioned for the 2018 Aspen Strategy Group Summer Workshop, a bipartisan meeting of national security experts, academics, private sector leaders, and technologists. The introduction by Nicholas Burns, Joseph S. Nye, Jr., and Condoleezza Rice provides an overview of technology’s impact on key pillars of American power and offers practical recommendations to meet the daunting challenges this technological era imposes. The chapters in this volume evaluate the disruptive nature of technological change on the U.S. military, economic power, and democratic governance. They highlight possible avenues for U.S. defense modernization, the impact of disinformation tactics and hybrid warfare on democratic institutions, and the need for a reinvigorated innovation triangle comprised of the U.S. government, academia, and private corporations."

Technology and National Security: Maintaining America's Edge

Condoleezza Rice

Jared Cohen

Diana Farrell

Edward Alden

Nicholas Burns

Jack Clark

John Deutch

John Dowdy

Chandru Krishnamurthy

Katherine Mansted

Jason Matheny

Penny Pritzker

Eric Rosenbach

Laura Rosenberger

Ash, Carter

Joseph S. Nye.Jr.

The Aspen Institute

Benjamin Franklin: An American Life

A New York Times Bestseller A Book of the Month Club Main Selection A History Book Club Alternate Selection
 In this colorful and intimate narrative, Isaacson provides the full sweep of Franklin's amazing life, from his days as a runaway printer to his triumphs as a statesman, scientist, and Founding Father. He chronicles Franklin's tumultuous relationship with his illegitimate son and grandson, his practical marriage, and his flirtations with the ladies of Paris. He also shows how Franklin helped to create the American character and why he has a particular resonance in the twenty-first century.

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

Thorndike Press

When Jennifer Doudna was in sixth grade, she came home one day to find that her dad had left a paperback titled The Double Helix on her bed. As she sped through the pages, she became enthralled by the intense drama behind the competition to discover the code of life. Even though her high school counselor told her girls didn’t become scientists, she decided she would.\nDriven by a passion to understand how nature works and to turn discoveries into inventions, she would help to make what the book’s author, James Watson, told her was the most important biological advance since his co-discovery of the structure of DNA. She and her collaborators turned a curiosity of nature into an invention that will transform the human race: an easy-to-use tool that can edit DNA. Known as CRISPR, it opened a brave new world of medical miracles and moral questions.\nThe development of CRISPR and the race to create vaccines for coronavirus will hasten our transition to the next great innovation revolution. The past half-century has been a digital age, based on the microchip, computer, and internet. Now we are entering a life-science revolution. Children who study digital coding will be joined by those who study genetic code.\nShould we use our new evolution-hacking powers to make us less susceptible to viruses? What a wonderful boon that would be! And what about preventing depression? Hmmm…Should we allow parents, if they can afford it, to enhance the height or muscles or IQ of their kids?\nAfter helping to discover CRISPR, Doudna became a leader in wrestling with these moral issues and, with her collaborator Emmanuelle Charpentier, won the Nobel Prize in 2020.

Code Breaker

Simon Schuster(uk)

Benjamin Franklin, An American Life

Leaders & Notable People

RecordedBooks

Acclaimed biographer Walter Isaacson's best-selling Benjamin Franklin shed remarkable insight onto one of America's most treasured historical icons. In Einstein: HIs Life and Universe, Isaacson again lends his dynamic analysis , this time to the greatest genius of the 20th century.

EINSTEIN (UNABRIDGED ON 18 CDs)

RECORDED BOOKS^

Einstein: His Life and Universe

History

Benjamin Franklin is the Founding Father who winks at us. An ambitious urban entrepreneur who rose up the social ladder, from leather-aproned shopkeeper to dining with kings, he seems made of flesh rather than of marble. In bestselling author Walter Isaacson's vivid and witty full-scale biography, we discover why Franklin seems to turn to us from history's stage with eyes that twinkle from behind his new-fangled spectacles. By bringing Franklin to life, Isaacson shows how he helped to define both his own time and ours.\nHe was, during his 84-year life, America's best scientist, inventor, diplomat, writer, and business strategist, and he was also one of its most practical—though not most profound—political thinkers. He proved by flying a kite that lightning was electricity, and he invented a rod to tame it. He sought practical ways to make stoves less smoky and commonwealths less corrupt. He organized neighborhood constabularies and international alliances, local lending libraries and national legislatures. He combined two types of lenses to create bifocals and two concepts of representation to foster the nation's federal compromise. He was the only man who shaped all the founding documents of the Albany Plan of Union, the Declaration of Independence, the treaty of alliance with France, the peace treaty with England, and the Constitution. And he helped invent America's unique style of homespun humor, democratic values, and philosophical pragmatism.\nBut the most interesting thing that Franklin invented, and continually reinvented, was himself. America's first great publicist, he was, in his life and in his writings, consciously trying to create a new American archetype. In the process, he carefully crafted his own persona, portrayed it in public, and polished it for posterity.\nThrough it all, he trusted the hearts and minds of his fellow "leather-aprons" more than he did those of any inbred elite. He saw middle-class values as a source of social strength, not as something to be derided. His guiding principle was a "dislike of everything that tended to debase the spirit of the common people." Few of his fellow founders felt this comfort with democracy so fully, and none so intuitively.\nIn this colorful and intimate narrative, Isaacson provides the full sweep of Franklin's amazing life, from his days as a runaway printer to his triumphs as a statesman, scientist, and Founding Father. He chronicles Franklin's tumultuous relationship with his illegitimate son and grandson, his practical marriage, and his flirtations with the ladies of Paris. He also shows how Franklin helped to create the American character and why he has a particular resonance in the twenty-first century.

Based on more than forty interviews with Jobs conducted over two years—as well as interviews with more than a hundred family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues—Walter Isaacson has written a riveting story of the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing.
At a time when America is seeking ways to sustain its innovative edge, and when societies around the world are trying to build digital-age economies, Jobs stands as the ultimate icon of inventiveness and applied imagination. He knew that the best way to create value in the twenty-first century was to connect creativity with technology. He built a company where leaps of the imagination were combined with remarkable feats of engineering. 
Although Jobs cooperated with this book, he asked for no control over what was written nor even the right to read it before it was published. He put nothing off-limits. He encouraged the people he knew to speak honestly. And Jobs speaks candidly, sometimes brutally so, about the people he worked with and competed against. His friends, foes, and colleagues provide an unvarnished view of the passions, perfectionism, obsessions, artistry, devilry, and compulsion for control that shaped his approach to business and the innovative products that resulted.
Driven by demons, Jobs could drive those around him to fury and despair. But his personality and products were interrelated, just as Apple’s hardware and software tended to be, as if part of an integrated system. His tale is instructive and cautionary, filled with lessons about innovation, character, leadership, and values.

Steve Jobs

Professionals & Academics

Simon & Schuster Audio

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Books by WALTER ISAACSON