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This is a collection of Einstein's writings and speeches on various topics, such as science, education, politics, Judaism, and kudos to other scientists. The real take-away I got from this book is that just because someone is a scientific genius does not mean they are a political genius.

Einstein was a rabid advocate of a world government, and a supporter of socialism. At first, I figured his misguided views were reasonable given the alarmism at the time about nuclear warfare, and his role in the development of nuclear weapons. But over time, his rants really started getting on my nerves, and I started mentally poking holes in his arguments.

His assumption, with no evidence to support it, was that world government is both necessary and sufficient for peace in a nuclear age. He believed that there was no other way, that it was inevitable: either we will form a world government to prevent nuclear war, or the nuclear war will lead to a world government. Surprisingly naive was that he actually thought this would do the trick. He specifically said all our problems would go away.

The amazing oversight here is that he never even discusses the question of what kind of government this would be. The most obvious question is whether it would socialist or capitalist. No matter how you answer that question, you will end up not with a world government but a hegemony of one nation over all others: if you say capitalist, the world government would be led by the United States, and if you say socialist, it would be led by the U.S.S.R.

Indeed, there was a letter by a Socialist complaining that a world government is just a way for the capitalists to oppress the whole world. Einstein replied that he thinks the Russian position is isolationist. It didn't occur to him to turn this around and ask if the U.S.S.R. would be behind a world government if it were to be a socialist government. I'm sure they'd have signed right up for that.

This goes to show that world government wasn't really the issue. The issue was, who gets the power? And that's the real problem with a world government. He seemed to think it would eliminate power politics, but instead it would just make it worse. In retrospect, the real danger of nuclear weapons turned out to be not the sovereignty of nations, but the lack of sovereignty and accountability of terrorists.

My feelings about Einstein's politics kept worsening as I listened to his rants about the dangers of nuclear war and the need for world government. It started sounding distinctly religious: you better get in good with [good solution] or you're going to [bad place]. Then he said specifically that what he most admires about the U.S.S.R. is the religious nature of the government. He thinks this religious, emotional fervor is a good thing. If only he'd lived long enough to see how that turned out for the U.S.S.R.

I know, it's unfair to use hindsight to poke holes in political views of a bygone era. But my point is relevant for today's politics: the solution to governments having too much deadly power is usually not to give them even more power, and ideology-based politics is a bug, not a feature.

I got nothing out of the other writings in this book. The science stuff went way over my head, and everything else was, though extremely eloquent, nonetheless mind-numbingly boring.