Writers For The Century

By Walter Isaacson, Managing Editor

Years ago, when some of us began thinking about who might be Person of the Century, Albert Einstein was one person who made each of our short lists. It was, above all, a century that would be remembered for advances in science and technology. Einstein stood out as its greatest scientific genius, and his work touched the most important fields of technology: nuclear weapons, television, space travel, lasers and semiconductors.

Since then, we've assembled panels of experts to help us choose our top nominees, who were profiled in the five issues of our TIME 100 series and on CBS News specials (and are now available as a book, People of the Century, from Simon & Schuster). We've done TV panels with Charlie Rose for his PBS show, had meetings with an array of historians and gotten millions (yes, really) of e-mails and votes online.

We came up with three finalists, all profiled in this issue, based on the major themes of the century. There was the triumph of freedom over fascism and communism, for which Franklin Roosevelt is the embodiment. To represent the crusades for civil rights and individual liberties, we chose Mohandas Gandhi. And, of course, there was Einstein to represent science and technology.

We had dream candidates to write about each finalist, and we were thrilled when they all agreed.

For Einstein, the obvious choice was Stephen Hawking, one of the greatest living theoretical physicists. His classic work, A Brief History of Time, has sold close to 9 million copies and was made into a PBS series that he narrated through his voice synthesizer (he has ALS, known as Lou Gehrig's disease). He's best known for devising theories of the Big Bang and black holes based on Einstein's work. We e-mailed Hawking at his Cambridge lab earlier this year to convince him of the importance of explaining Einstein at the end of his century.

One of President Bill Clinton's accomplishments has been to restore the strength of Franklin Roosevelt's legacy by reforming welfare and conquering runaway deficits while still showing how government could help average citizens. He's written a fascinating piece about what Roosevelt means today. Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of a best-selling book on Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt, is a great historian and a wonderful writer. Her biographical essay on Roosevelt captures, in a moving way, his personality and historic significance.

I once had the opportunity to accompany Nelson Mandela on a tour of the cellblock on South Africa's Robben Island where he spent many of his 27 years of imprisonment. He recalled how he and his colleagues used to argue about the tactics of Gandhi, who developed his theory of nonviolence as a young lawyer in that country. In his essay, Mandela describes how he strayed from Gandhi's philosophy at times, and why.

By the end of our process, we felt even more strongly that Einstein best met our criteria: the person who, for better or worse, personified our times and will be recorded by history as having the most lasting significance. I explain how we arrived at that conclusion in a story on page 48. Let us know if you agree. Either way, I'm confident that you'll appreciate the work of the great writers who make personal the legacies of all three of our finalists.

Walter Isaacson, Managing Editor