Was Einstein's first wife his uncredited coauthor, unpaid assistant, or his unacknowledged helpmeet? The real “Mileva Story.”
Albert Einstein's first wife, Mileva Einstein-Maric, was forgotten for decades. When a trove of correspondence between them beginning in their student days was discovered in 1986, her story began to be told. Some of the tellers of the “Mileva Story” made startling claims: that she was a brilliant mathematician who surpassed her husband, and that she made uncredited contributions to his most celebrated papers in 1905, including his paper on special relativity. This book, based on extensive historical research, uncovers the real “Mileva Story.” 
Mileva was one of the few women of her era to pursue higher education in science; she and Einstein were students together at the Zurich Polytechnic. Mileva's ambitions for a science career, however, suffered a series of setbacks―failed diploma examinations, a disagreement with her doctoral dissertation adviser, an out-of-wedlock pregnancy by Einstein. She and Einstein married in 1903 and had two sons, but the marriage failed. Was Mileva her husband's uncredited coauthor, unpaid assistant, or his essential helpmeet? It's tempting to believe that she was her husband's secret collaborator, but the authors of Einstein's Wife look at the actual evidence, and a chapter by Ruth Lewin Sime offers important historical context. The story they tell is that of a brave and determined young woman who struggled against a variety of obstacles at a time when science was not very welcoming to women.

Einstein's Wife: The Real Story of Mileva Einstein-Maric

Biographies & Memoirs

Esterson, Allen

Cassidy, David C.

Community & Culture

The MIT Press

The real-life story behind Marie Benedict’s The Other Einstein—a fascinating profile of mathematician Mileva Einstein-Marić and her contributions to her husband’s scientific discoveries.\nAlbert Einstein’s first wife, Mileva Einstein-Marić, was forgotten for decades. When a trove of correspondence between them beginning in their student days was discovered in 1986, her story began to be told. Some of the tellers of the “Mileva Story” made startling claims: that she was a brilliant mathematician who surpassed her husband, and that she made uncredited contributions to his most celebrated papers in 1905, including his paper on special relativity. This book, based on extensive historical research, uncovers the real “Mileva Story.”\nMileva was one of the few women of her era to pursue higher education in science; she and Einstein were students together at the Zurich Polytechnic. Mileva’s ambitions for a science career, however, suffered a series of setbacks—failed diploma examinations, a disagreement with her doctoral dissertation adviser, an out-of-wedlock pregnancy by Einstein. She and Einstein married in 1903 and had two sons, but the marriage failed.\nSo was Mileva her husband’s uncredited coauthor, unpaid assistant, or his essential helpmeet? It’s tempting to believe that she was her husband’s secret collaborator, but the authors of Einstein's Wife look at the actual evidence, and a chapter by Ruth Lewin Sime offers important historical context. The story they tell is that of a brave and determined young woman who struggled against a variety of obstacles at a time when science was not very welcoming to women.\nGiven the barriers women in science still face, [Mileva’s] story remains relevant.” 
—Washington Post

Einstein's Wife: The Real Story of Mileva Einstein-Maric (Mit Press)

Professionals & Academics

MIT Press]

Whereas many critics of psychoanalysis have attacked Freud's arguments and the scientific basis of his theories, Esterson's critique is more radical and startling in that he calls into question the alleged factual evidence which supposedly formed the basis of Freud's conclusions. Beginning with the celebrated "child seduction" stories that formed the origin of psychoanalysis, Esterson demonstrates by historical detective work and especially by comparing the variations in Freud's own accounts, that Freud's reports of what his clients told him cannot be relied upon and were shaped by Freud to support his own conclusions. Esterson claims that Freud's patients did not report their seduction in childhood - instead, he argues, Freud posits childhood seductions which the patients could not "remember". Time amd again, Esterson claims, supposed "facts" turn out to be nothing of the kind, owing much to misconceptions or faulty recollections on Freud's part, or to Freud's habit of describing his own inferences as if the patient had explicitly voiced them. There is even, claims Esterson, evidence of deliberate manipulation or outright invention of alleged data. Such evidence undermines not only Freud's clinical claims but also his reputation as an inquirer of unspotted integrity. By a close dissection of Freud's writing, Esterson claims to lay bare the dearth of empirical support for psychoanalysis, the weaknesses in Freud's arguments, and the specious tissue of persuasive rhetoric which has seduced so many intelligent people into supposing that Freud is a thinker of major stature.

Seductive Mirage: An Exploration of the Work of Sigmund Freud

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Psychology & Counseling

Open Court Pub. Co

Book jacket/back: Although it is now widely held that the scientific basis for Sigmund Freud's theories is decidedly wobby, and his surmises often appear woefully incomplete at best, there yet remains an impression that Freud was a bold explorer of the mind's hidden depths, a penetrating if fallible discerner of unsuspected motives behind the superficially innocent forms of behavior. And if even that is now more frequently questioned, we are at least left with the consolation that Freud, however misguided, was a man of unsported integrity, who sincerely strove to uncover the truth and accurately reported what his clients told him. Only a few writers have heretofore intimated the possibility that Freud's accounts of his cases are systematically and self servingly untruthful, but now Allen Esterson picks up the trail, and demonstrates, by acute detective work, that Freud's work cannot be relied upon (Esterson leaves open the extent to which this can be attributed to self-deception or to calculated fraud). The notorious 'child seduction' incidents, which supposedly led to the framing of the fundamentals of psychoanalytic theory, have occasioned much controversy over the question whether Freud was right to consign these reminiscences of sexual molestations in infancy to the realm of fantasy. This dispute is entirely beside the point because, as Esterson shows, Freud's clients did not report memories of childhood molestation. Here as became habitual with him, Freud muddled his own conjectures of what was going on in his clients' unconscious with their accounts of what they remembered, and, over time, Freud came to represent the former as the latter. Esterson takes us through all the key published cases in Freud's cases in Freud's career, showing that Freud's reports are often at least strongly indicative of misrepresentation, and in some cases demonstrably misleading. Esterson's indictment builds irresistiby to a 'proof beyond reasonable doubt' that Freud's claim to rank as a major thinker is unfounded, and indeed quite preposterous, though his extraordinary achievement as persuader and rhetorician is unassailable.

Open Court

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