While most available works on Einstein trace the origins and evolution of his views and theories, David Cassidy focuses on Einstein's influence within and far beyond the confines of physics. Following a brief, nontechnical explanation of the significance of Einstein's achievements, Dr. Cassidy explores how Einstein's work spread throughout the physical sciences and led to a new conception of the theoretical physicist. It then engendered a new understanding of the physical world and ultimately provided the framework for a new and profound intellectual and technical mastery of nature. Dr. Cassidy takes the reader on a fascinating journey through the uses and abuses of Einstein's relativity theory in such widely diverse settings as political ideology, philosophy of science, literature, art religion, and the individual in an age of dictatorship, genocide, and weapons of mass destruction.