Dr. Montefiore is an historian of Russia and the Middle East. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, he has been awarded the Literary Prize Lupicaia del Terriccio 2017 for his book ‘The Romanovs: 1613-1918’. He is the author of ‘Catherine the Great and Potemkin:...
Jon Taplin wrote the book Move Fast and Break Things: How Google, Facebook and Amazon Have Cornered Culture and What It Means For All Of Us. The Guardian newspaper review described the book’s central argument as being that “the titans of the digital age frequently...
Life in Iraq today is archaic and dysfunctional - and on show at the 57th Venice Biennale. Tamara Chalabi is co-founder and Chair of the Ruya Foundation for Contemporary Culture in Iraq. She is co-curator of Archaic at the National Pavilion of Iraq for the 57th...
The physicist at the head of Cambridge University's Churchill College has concerns about Brexit. Professor Dame Athene Donald, DBE, FRS is Professor of Experimental Physics at Cambridge University, where she is Master of Churchill College. She served as the University...
Staffan de Mistura is the United Nations Special Envoy tasked with seeking a peaceful resolution to the conflict in Syria. We republish this interview from December 2014 on April 7th 2017 as President Donald Trump orders air strikes on a target in Syria. What is your...
Gerard Baker is Editor-in-Chief of Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal. He served as Deputy Editor-in-Chief between 2009 and 2013. Previously, he was U.S. editor and an assistant editor of the Times of London. In 1994, he joined the Financial Times as Tokyo...
His Excellency Pasquale Terracciano was appointed Italian Ambassador to London in 2013. Alain made this Classic Interview in December of that year, when he had been in post for just 6 months. Is London the Capital of the World? Pasquale Terracciano, you have been...
Very sadly Jean d'Ormesson died on December 5th 2017. We send our condolences to his family and republish this interview in his memory. "The real victim of populism is democracy." Various countries of the world are living in a situation of increasing populism. In...
Combatting stress, the global epidemic of the 21st Century. Dr. Amit Sood was born and raised in Bhopal, India. He is a Professor of Medicine at the Mayo Clinic, and he is committed to decreasing suffering and increasing happiness. Dr. Sood is the author of The Mayo...
The Editor-in-Chief of Bloomberg News has an extraordinary platform of observation on what’s happening in the world. What do you think at Bloomberg about the new President Trump’s aggressive attitude towards journalists and the press? Do you think the freedom of the...
We republish this Classic Interview in recognition of Holocaust Memorial Day 2017. The interview with Peter Lantos took place at the London Library in St James's Square in London. He is a Holocaust survivor from Hungary and has lived in London for 45 years. He writes...
Professor Sir Magdi Yacoub, OM, FRS, Founder and President of Chain of Hope, is one of the world’s greatest, and most famous, surgeons. Born in Egypt in 1935, he studied medicine in Cairo and then London, becoming a consultant cardiothoracic surgeon at Harefield...
Hanif Kureishi is the author of novels such as 'The Buddha of Suburbia' and 'Intimacy', story collections, plays and screenplays. 'The Buddha of Suburbia' was made into a BBC TV series with a soundtrack by David Bowie. 'My Beautiful Laundrette', a story about a gay...
Dr. Corinne Michaela Flick studied both law and literature, and is Founder and Chair of the Convoco! Foundation. Dr. Flick is Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Aspen Institute Germany, Co-Founder of the Friends of the Bavarian State Library, Munich, and a member...
The Improbability of Love You are quite eclectic and your work has ranged from documentary films, to banking, to philanthropy, to biography, and now to a novel. Why do you think you have many different facets? I have that kind of restless, inquisitive mind. It’s...
With great sadness we learn of the death of Shimon Peres, one of Israel's great leaders - a man who devoted his life to serving his country and the world. 28th September, 2016 "Looking back the only mistake we made was not dreaming big enough. Let's dream big, let's...
Primo Levi opened a universal platform with his reflections on human nature. You are the Director and one of the founding members of the Primo Levi Center in New York. What is the purpose of this center? The Center was born in 1998 to sustain the conversation and...
Artists are the leaders of the 21st Century. Ik-Joong Kang is one of South Korea’s most renowned and celebrated multimedia artists. His works are poignant symbols of hope for reunification, particularly of North and South Korea. This September at Robilant+Voena’s...
“In Florence exhibitions on old masters are more successful than exhibitions on contemporary artists!” Eike Schmidt was appointed Director of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence by Dario Franceschini, the Italian Minister of Culture. He is the first non-Italian to be...
Hans Rauscher is an author and a journalist at Der Standard, an Austrian national daily broadsheet newspaper that has been published in Vienna since 1988. Austria will re-run a Presidential election on October 2 that could produce the first far-Right Head of State in...
We re-publish this 2014 interview with Elie Wiesel in grateful commemoration of his life and his humanity. Elie has been a longtime friend and an example of Jewish life. I will remember his voice, his words, his love for literature. When together we used to speak...
H.E. Mark Regev is the Ambassador of Israel to the United Kingdom since April 2016. He was the chief spokesman for the Prime Minister of Israel from 2007 to 2015. You have been Ambassador in the UK for a few months and had to face the Livingstone affair, when the...
The planetary architect of today delivers a well considered response to human, cultural and geographic diversity. The leading architect David Adjaye OBE set up his first office in 1994, where his ingenious use of materials and his sculptural ability established him as...
Consequences of a Brexit. Dr Robin Niblett CMG is Director of Chatham House, The Royal Institute of International Affairs, one of the world’s most influential policy institutes. The University of Pennsylvania Global Think Tank Index 2015 ranked them number one in...
Ban Ki-moon is the current Secretary-General of the United Nations. When I go to see him, I am accompanied to the 38th floor of the United Nations building with very little formality. It is October 2007. There is a large room with many photographs and leather chairs....
The Italian Cultural Institute of New York is an office of the Italian government, dedicated to the promotion of Italian language and culture in the United States through the organisation of cultural events. You have now been Director of the Italian Cultural Institute...
Napoleon intended Brera Pinacoteca to be the Louvre of Italy. Dr. James M. Bradburne is a British-Canadian architect, designer and museum specialist who is the newly appointed Director General of Pinacoteca di Brera e Biblioteca nazionale Braidense in Milan. His aim...
"Trump has no experience of politics. The US people want outsiders." Dr. Geoffrey Garrett is Dean, Reliance Professor of Management and Private Enterprise, and Professor of Management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania (PENN). Wharton was founded...
The Music and Energy of Poems. Why is "Widening Income Inequality" the title of your new collection of poems, published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux and coming out in America now? The title is used with some considerable irony. It is a very common phrase, used by...
Antisemitism is a societal disease. Professor Manuela Consonni is Director of The Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism in Jerusalem Professor Consonni, can you tell us about your new prestigious role at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University as...
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Money Must Stay in the Family
The plot of Money Must Stay in the Family, unfolds around the family matriarch’s last will and traces the story of an upper class Jewish family from Turin, the fictional Ottolenghis. The multigenerational saga begins with the flight from Mussolini’s Racial Laws of 1938 and continues with the arrival in the Upper West Side of Manhattan and the dispersion from New York to Rome, Paris, Tuscany, South America, and Jerusalem.
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