“In this compact and lively study, Hentschel weaves together elements of a story that conventional disciplinary divisions—history of physics, history of architecture, history of institutions—pull asunder. By deliberately focusing not on a theory, a person, or even an institution but rather a building, he is able to skip nimbly among these unusually disjoint subjects and approaches and to create a smooth and often fascinating, always illuminating, narrative out of these pieces.”—Lorraine Daston, University of Chicago
“Hentschel has succeeded in writing a very readable account of certain hitherto neglected aspects of the early history of general relativity, made more fascinating by the eccentric perspective that his account takes.”—Jürgen Renn, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science