Why Left Canada Reflections by Infeld (5 results)
Why I Left Canada: Reflections on Science and Politics
Infeld, Leopold; translated by Helen Infeld; edited by Louis Pyenson
Language: English
Published by McGill-Queen's University Press, Montreal, PQ, 1978
- Hardcover
Seller: Hourglass Books, vancouver, BC, CanadaHourglass Books
Contact seller5-star sellerCondition: Used - Very good
£ 22.73
Free ShippingShips from Canada to U.S.A.Quantity: 1 available
Hardcover. Condition: Very Good+. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. Canadian First. Some edge wear to dust jacket; otherwise a solid, clean copy with no marking or underlining; collectible condition; illustrated with black and white photographs; 212 pages; dust jacket is protected by a mylar cover.
- Hardcover
Seller: Better World Books, Mishawaka, IN, U.S.A.Better World Books
Contact seller5-star sellerCondition: Used - Good
£ 27.26
Free ShippingShips within U.S.A.Quantity: 1 available
Condition: Good. Former library copy. Pages intact with minimal writing/highlighting. The binding may be loose and creased. Dust jackets/supplements are not included. Includes library markings. Stock photo provided. Product includes identifying sticker. Better World Books: Buy Books. Do Good.
- Hardcover
- First Edition
Seller: MostlyAcademic, Berrima, NSW, AustraliaMostlyAcademic
Contact seller5-star sellerCondition: Used - Very good
£ 21.80
£ 25.70 shippingShips from Australia to U.S.A.Quantity: 1 available
Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Fair. 1st Edition. Light pencil lines on a few pages, otherwise unmarked. With dust jacket.
- Hardcover
Seller: Mythos Center Books, Frontenac, MN, U.S.A.Mythos Center Books
Contact seller5-star sellerCondition: Used - Very good
£ 56.81
£ 3.31 shippingShips within U.S.A.Quantity: 1 available
Unknown Binding. Condition: Very Good. Excellent condition! Binding tight, pages crisp with no markings, no dj.
- Hardcover
- First Edition
Seller: killarneybooks, Inagh, CLARE, Irelandkillarneybooks
Contact seller5-star sellerCondition: Used - Good
£ 31.34
£ 28.88 shippingShips from Ireland to U.S.A.Quantity: 1 available
Hardcover. Condition: Good. No Jacket. 1st Edition. Translated by Helen Infeld. Edited with Introduction and Notes by Lewis Pyenson. Hardcover, xii + 212 pages, b&w photos in text. Ex-university library, stamped "withdrawn"; with internal ownership and inventory markings. Contents are clean, untanned, with unmarked text. A coupl…e of straightened corner folds. Faint marks on the outer page edges. Boards show grubby handling marks (with a darker stain on the front panel), abrasions, short creases to corners. Two external library stickers. No dust jacket. -- Leopold Infeld (1898-1968) is best known for his collaboration with Albert Einstein in the 1930s on the general theory of relativity, resulting in both groundbreaking research on the problem of motion and their jointly authored popular science classic The Evolution of Physics (1938). This posthumously published memoir, translated from the Polish, addresses a less celebrated but no less significant chapter of his life: his decision in 1950 to leave his professorship at the University of Toronto and return to communist Poland. The book offers Infeld's own account of the forces that drove that decision. After the first use of nuclear weapons in 1945, he became, like Einstein, a committed peace activist, which led to accusations of communist sympathies during the early years of the Cold War. Infeld frames his departure not as ideological conversion but as a response to political hostility in Canada and a sense of obligation to help rebuild Polish science after the devastation of the Second World War. The volume contains dedicated sections on his teacher Wladyslaw Natanson and on his celebrated colleagues such as Einstein, Niels Bohr, J. Robert Oppenheimer and Max Planck, providing both portraits of his peers and introspection regarding his own actions. Implicit comparisons of science in communist and non-communist countries, presented in Infeld's highly readable, anecdotal fashion, make this book far more than a story of the personal trials of one man. The volume offers a rare insider perspective on the politics of science during the Cold War, written by someone who had lived on both sides of the ideological divide and whose career, spent in pre-war Poland, wartime Canada, and post-war Warsaw, placed him at the intersection of some of the most consequential scientific and political events of the 20th century. This memoir remains a valuable historical account of the political climate surrounding science in the late 1940s and the choices forced upon intellectuals navigating Cold War allegiances. It speaks directly to recurring questions about the relationship between scientific freedom, political loyalty and national obligation - questions that have lost none of their relevance in an era of renewed geopolitical tension and debate over the politicisation of research.
