Jimena Canales is the Thomas M. Siebel Chair in the History of Science University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her first book, A tenth of a second (Canales, 2011), exploring the importance that precise time measurement had on modern science and society, has been widely reviewed and acclaimed. The present book grew up from the last chapter of her previous work. The Physicist and the Philosopher is the ambitious attempt to describe how the debate between Einstein and Bergson—an interplay of philosophical differences, political disagreement, and personal animosity—had a profound and far-reaching impact on our culture’s perception of “the nature of time, the role of philosophy, and the reach and power of science” (p. 8)