Skip to main content

Walter Isaacson

As a Guest

6 segments
44:18

Einstein: Relatively Speaking, a Complicated Life

Walter Isaacson, former managing editor of Time magazine and author of best-selling biographies of Benjamin Franklin and Henry Kissinger, has turned his attention to the 20th century's scientific poster boy: Albert Einstein, whose family life was as difficult as his career was distinguished.

Isaacson's book Einstein: His Life and Universe represents the first complete history of the theoretical-physicist-turned- refugee to draw upon all of Einstein's papers, many of which were unsealed last summer.

Interview
33:04

Journalist and author Walter Isaacson

He has written the new biography Benjamin Franklin: An American Life. Reviewer Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., writes of the book, "both an absorbing narrative biography and an acute assessment of the man and his impact on his time and on posterity." Isaacson is also the author of a biography of Kissinger, is president of the Aspen Institute, and was managing editor of Time magazine.

Interview
46:06

Walter Isaacson's Comprehensive Look at Henry Kissinger

Isaacson has just written an extensive book about the life of Secretary of State and Nobel Prize Laureate. The writer takes us from Kissinger's boyhood in Germany, his family's flight to America in 1938, through his army career, his years at Harvard as a student and later a professor, and his rise to political power. Isaacson notes Kissinger's many accomplishments, but also portrays him as secretive, paranoid and duplicitous.

Interview

Did you know you can create a shareable playlist?

Advertisement

There are more than 22,000 Fresh Air segments.

Let us help you find exactly what you want to hear.
Just play me something
Your Queue

Would you like to make a playlist based on your queue?

Generate & Share View/Edit Your Queue