The realities of war,nationality,and religion are almost ignored in previous biographies of Einstein.This is the first to make clear that if Neils Bohr had not been Danish he would not have had access to research from both the British and German
Universities.The same is true …more of Einstein. Had he not been seen as a Swiss Jew by the British and a German Jew by the Germans he would not have had access. So in this sense both Bohr and Einstein were fairly unique. Eddington had no idea what Strassman or Lise Meitner were up to.The British took great measures to isolate their secrets from the Germans.
The book also reminds us that back then the British determined what was science and what was news. It was a British team that proved the bending of light by gravity,a British scientific body that endorsed the results and the British press that made Einstein more famous than Chaplin. (less)