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Some Einstein Literature

Disclaimer: the literature on Einstein is so massive that it is impossible to give a reading list that does not omit many worthy titles.
Use this list as a starting point.

Introductory Surveys

Michel Janssen and Christoph Lehner, The Cambridge Companion to Einstein. Cambridge University Pres, 2014.

This is a collection of introductory articles written by leading experts and probably the best place to start.

John D. Norton, Einstein for Everyone

An online book of 46 chapters covering many aspects of Einstein's work, written at an introductory level, essentially free of mathematics.

Abraham Pais, Subtle is the Lord: The Science and Life of Albert Einstein. Oxford: Clarendon, 1982.

The standard scientific biography of Einstein's work.

Robert E Kennedy, A Student's Guide to Einstein's Major Papers Oxford University Press, 2012.

Ta-Pei Cheng, Einstein's Physics: Atoms, Quanta, and Relativity--Derived, Explained and Appraised.Oxford University Press.

For someone who specifically wants to figure out just how Einstein did his sums, these are unusually helpful works that focus on reconstructing Einstein's calculations. Post publication corrections Einstein's Physics... here.

Collections of Primary Sources

The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

This is a multivolume work and ongoing project by a large editorial team of Einstein experts. It now comprises 13 volumes with more to come. It is the definitive resource for Einstein scholarship and includes Einstein's published works, manuscripts and correspondence. The Einstein material is presented within an elaborate and highly informative editorial apparatus that represents some of the best Einstein scholarship. The Collected Papers includes companion English translation volumes.

Digital Einstein Papers

In a major contribution to scholarship, Princeton University Press has made all the material in the Collected Papers accessible on a website at the indicated link. The material is accessible only one page at a time and, alas, at rather low resolution. However it is all there.

Albert Einstein et al., The Principle of Relativity. Dover.

A standard edition of Einstein's "On the electrodynamics of moving bodies" and "Does the inertia of a body depend on its energy content?" (E=mc²). Also has a key 1904 paper by Lorentz, Minkowski on spacetime and some of Einstein's later papers on general relativity.

John Stachel, ed., Einstein's Miraculous Year: Five Papers that Changed the Face of Physics. Princeton University Press, 1998.

English translations of the Einstein 1905 corpus. Editorial material follows Papers, Vol. 2, but in simplified form.

Albert Einstein, Investigations on the Theory of the Brownian Movement. Dover.

A standard edition that contains Einstein's Brownian motion paper and his dissertation on dilute sugar solutions as well as other related papers.

Juergen Renn (ed.), Einstein's Annalen Papers: The Complete Collection 1901-1922. Wiley VCH, 2005.

Many of Einstein's most important papers were published in the Annalen der Physik and are reproduced in facsimile here. There are several useful introductory essays.

Einstein's Annalen Papers Online

The papers of the last volume are acessible online at this site, along with a lot of other useful material. It includes the hard-to-find papers by Einstein in the Prussian Academy "Sitzungsberichte."

Einstein's Zurich Notebook

High quality scans online at the ECHO project. (May no longer be a live site.)

Einstein's More General Writings

Relativity, the Special and the General Theory: A Popular Exposition. 1917 and later.

This is Einstein's celebrated popularization of relativity theory. Later editions have significant addenda.

Sidelights on Relativity: I. Ether and Relativity. II. Geometry and Experience. London: Methuen, 1922

Two very important works philosophically. Geometry and Experience, especially, has exercised a profound influence on 20th century philosophy of space and time.

The Meaning of Relativity: Four Lectures Delivered at Princeton University. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1922. And later editions.

This is Einstein's text book development of special and general relativity.

Autobiographical Notes. Chicago: Open Court, 1979; also the initial chapter of P. A. Schilpp (ed.) Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist. Chicago: Open Court, 1949.

This is Einstein's biography, which is devoted mostly to his intellectual developwork and scientific work. The Schilpp volume is a large collection of articles devoted to Einstein and his work. It concludes with an illuminating chapter by chapter response by Einstein.

The World as I See It (1934), Out of My Later Years (1950), Ideas and Opinions (1954)

Collections of Einstein's more popular writings, some of great significance.

Special and General Relativity

Wolfgang Pauli, Theory of Relativity.Dover.

A reprint of Pauli's 1921 Teubner Encyclopedia article. It is both an introduction to relativity theory and a survey of the literature. An invaluable historical resource.

Max Born, Einstein's Theory of Relativity. Dover.

A reprint of Born's work, first published in 1924. It is a popular exposition but gives much of the historical background in a very accessible form.

Arthur Miller, Albert Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity Addison-Wesley, 1981.

An expansive collection of material on Einstein's celebrated 1905 paper, the background in electrodynamics preceding and subsequent developments. The exposition is not always helpful. Has a translation of the 1905 special relativity paper.

Juergen Renn, ed., The Genesis of General Relativity. Vol. 1-4. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science. Springer, 2007.

This four volume set is the definitive scholarly examination of the development of general relativity. Its most prominent part is a facsimile and transcription of Einstein's Zurich notebook and a detailed commentary that works through the notebook page by page. The volumes also present translations of other important scientific papers and secondary discussions by leading historians of science. Available through SpringerLink in the Pitt library.

Michel Janssen and Juergen Renn, How Einstein Found His Field Equations. Sources and Interpretations. Springer, 2022.

A more accessible survey of Einstein's discovery of general relativity. Many original sources included.

Hanoch Gutfreund and Juergen Renn, The Road to Relativity: The History and Meaning of Einstein's "The Foundation of General Relativity." Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015.

The volume is devoted to Einstein's 1916 survey article, which Einstein wrote to mark the completion of the general theory of relativity. It includes Einstein's handwritten manuscript for the review article in facsimile and considerable supplementary commentary. Can be read online through the Pitt library.

Surveys

Edmund Whittaker, A History of the Theories of Aether and Electricity. Dover.

A venerable, standard history. Slight idiosyncrasy in attributing special relativity to Lorentz and Poincare.

Olivier Darrigol, Electrodynamics from Ampere to Einstein. Oxford, 2000.

A more recent, solid history of 19th century electrodynamics.

Stephen G. Brush, The Kind of Motion We Call Heat: A History of the Kinetic Theory of Gases in the 19th Century. 2 Vols. Amsterdam: North Holland, 1976.

Stephen G. Brush, Statistical Physics and the Atomic Theory of Matter, from Boyle and Newton to Landau and Onsager. Princeton Univ. Press, 1983

Standard histories of statistical physics.

Mary Jo Nye, Molecular Reality: A Perspective on the Scientific Work of Jean Perrin. London: MacDonald, 1972.

A standard account of the atomic debates, focussing on Perrin's contribution and written from his perspective.

Max Jammer, The Conceptual Development of Quantum Mechanics.New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966.

A now venerable but still standard history of quantum theory.

Olivier Darrigol, From c-Numbers to q-Numbers: The Classical Analogy in the History of Quantum Theory Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992.

For several decades, one of the best surveys of history of quantum theory. Out of print, but can be browsed online here.

Anthony Duncan and Michel Janssen, Constructing Quantum Mechanics, Volume One: The Scaffold: 1900–1923. Oxford University Press, 2019.

Now the best history of quantum theory for the time indicated.

Notable Collections

John Stachel, Einstein from 'B' to 'Z'.Boston: Birkhaeuser, 2002.

A collection of essays on Einstein by a leading Einstein expert.

Don Howard and John Stachel, eds., Einstein: The Formative Years, 1879-1909. Boston: Birkhaeuser, 1998.

Collection of papers on Einstein's early years.

These are two volumes from the thirteen volume series Einstein Studies, edited by Don Howard and John Stachel.

Einstein's Philosophy of Science

Don A. Howard and Marco Giovanelli, "Einstein’s Philosophy of Science", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Edward N. Zalta (ed.).

Don A. Howard, "Albert Einstein as a Philosopher of Science," Physics Today. December 2005, pp. 34-40.

P. A. Schilpp (ed.) Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist. Chicago: Open Court, 1949.

A large collection of appreciations and reactions to Einstein's work by his notable comtemporaries:
Sommerfeld, de Broglie, Rosenthal-Schneider, Pauli, Born, Heitler, Bohr, Margenau, Frank, Reichenbach, Robertson, Bridgman, Lenzen, Northrop, Milne, Lemaitre, Menger, Infeld, von Laue, Dingle, Goedel, Bachelard, Wenzl, Ushenko, Hindshaw.

Jimema Canales, The Physicist and the Philosopher. Einstein, Bergson and the Debate that Changed our Understanding of Time. Princeton Univ. Press, 2015.

Alessandra Campo and Simone Gozzano, Einstein vs. Bergson: An Enduring Quarrel on Time. De Gruyter, 2022

Some Sources for the 19th Century Background to Relativity

Fresnel Ether Drag in John D. Norton, Einstein for Everyone

H. A. Lorentz, Versuch einer Theorie der electrischen und optischen Erscheinungen in bewegten Körpern, 1895, E. J. Brill, Leiden. English Translation at Attempt of a Theory of Electrical and Optical Phenomena in Moving Bodies.

Michel Janssen, "The Trouton Experiment, E = mc2, and a Slice of Minkowski Space-Time," In: Abhay Ashtekar et al. (ed.), Revisiting the Foundations of Relativistic Physics: Festschrift in Honor of John Stachel. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2003. Pp. 27–54.

Michel Janssen and John Stachel, "The Optics and Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies," Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Preprint 265, 2004.

Michel Janssen, "The drag coefficient from Fresnel to Laue." Ch. 2 in Physics as a Calling, Science for Society Studies in Honour of A.J. Kox. Eds. Ad Maas and Henriëtte Schatz. Leiden Publications.

Biographies

There are very many Einstein biographies, written as many different levels. Here are just two fairly recent ones:

Albrecht Foelsing, Albert Einstein: A Biography. Viking, 1997.

Walter Isaacson, Einstein: His Life and Universe Simon and Shuster, 2007.

József Illy, The Practical Einstein: Experiments, Patents, Inventions. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012.
Thomas P. Hughes, "Einstein, Inventors, and Invention,"Science in Context 6, 1(1993), pp. 25-42.

Einstein was a patent examiner in his 1905 year of miracles and subsequently continued both to work with patents and inventions for many years thereafter.

Einstein as a Public Figure

Siegfried Grundmann, The Einstein Dossiers: Science and Politics Einstein’s Berlin Period with an Appendix on Einstein’s FBI File. Springer 2004.

Einstein's 14 part, full FBI file in the FBI Records "Vault" website. https://vault.fbi.gov/Albert%20Einstein

Max Jammer, Einstein and Religion: Physics and Theology. Princeton University Press, 1999.

A long standing public fascination has been "did Einstein believe in God?"