Seth Kaller, Inc.

“I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity.”

ALBERT EINSTEIN. Signed Book, Out of My Later Years, by Albert Einstein, signed “A. Einstein” on flyleaf, Philosophical Library, New York, 1950. 282 pp., 5¼ x 8 in.

Inventory #22306       SOLD — please inquire about other items

Albert Einstein was far more than a scientist; he was also a humanist philosopher who lived through the signal events of the twentieth century. In this 1950 book, he collects his essays from the early 1930s to 1949. The subjects reveal the breadth and depth of  Einstein’s thinking. He writes of his personal beliefs “On Education” (1936), “Moral Decay (1937), and twice on “Science and Religion” (1939; 1941). He asks the question “What is the Theory of Relativity” (1919) and writes an essay laying out his equation “E=MC²” (1946). Delving into public policy, he asks “Why Socialism” (1949), addresses “The Negro Question” (1946), and in his “Open Letter to the General Assembly of the United Nations” (1947), hopes to influence world affairs. He regrets that “The War is Won but Peace is Not” (1945), and tries to come to terms with “The Menace of Mass Destruction” (1947) that resulted from the question of “Atomic War or Peace” (1945; 1947). He memorializes earlier scientists such as Isaac Newton and Johannes Kepler alongside personal friends such as Marie Curie and Max Planck.

Finally, he returns to personal identity and closes the collection with a look at “The Goal of Human Existence” (1943), asks “Why Do They Hate the Jews” (1938), and acknowledges “Our Debt to Zionism” (1938) while paying homage “To the Heroes of the Battle of the Warsaw Ghetto” (1944). With his appeal “Let’s Not Forget” (1934) unheeded, Einstein offers his feelings when standing “Before the Monument to the Martyred Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto” (1948) before ending with his thoughts on “The Jews of Israel” (1949).

Albert Einstein (1879-1955) was a German-Swiss born theoretical physicist internationally recognized as one of the greatest physicists of all time. He enunciated the general theory of Relativity, with law explaining the relationship between the speed of light and its consequence, the equivalence of mass and energy (E=MC²). For his work in theoretical physics—largely for his 1905 paper on photons and photo-electricity—Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics (announced in November 1922, retroactive for 1921). Working on a unified field theory, he then attempted to explain gravitation and electromagnetism within one set of laws. With the expulsion of Jewish scholars from Germany after Hitler’s rise to power, Einstein joined the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey (1933), which became the most celebrated research center in the world. In 1939, he signed a letter written to President Franklin Roosevelt warning him of the possibility of Germany developing a nuclear bomb. He urged the U.S. to begin uranium research, thus beginning the top secret “Manhattan Project.” Later, at Princeton, he tried to develop a unified field theory and to refute the accepted interpretation of quantum physics, both unsuccessfully. Einstein received U.S. citizenship in 1940.  

Condition 

Very good. Rebound in green marbled cloth with gilt lettering on spine. Light foxing to preliminaries and page edges; light crayon scribbles on the later front flyleaves; Owner’s name and address, and presentation inscription on free front endpaper.