In open and lively responses to the probing questions and provocative comments of Richard D. Heffner—American historian, noted public television moderator/producer, and Rutgers University professor—Elie Wiesel covers fascinating and often perilous political and spiritual ground, expounding on issues global and local, individual and universal, often drawing anecdotally on his own life experience.
We hear from Wiesel on subjects that include the moral responsibility of both individuals and governments; the role of the state in our lives; the anatomy of hate; the threat of technology; religion, politics, and tolerance; nationalism; capital punishment, compassion, and mercy; and the essential role of historical memory.
These conversations present a valuable and thought-provoking distillation of the thinking of one of the world’s most important and respected figures—a man who has become a moral beacon for our time.
Author
Elie Wiesel
ELIE WIESEL was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. The author of more than fifty internationally acclaimed works of fiction and nonfiction, he was Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities and University Professor at Boston University for forty years. Wiesel died in 2016.
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Richard D. Heffner
Richard D. Heffner received his A.B. and M.A. from Columbia University and taught history and political science at the University of California, Sarah Lawrence College, and the New School for Social Research. He was University Professor of Communications and Public Policy at Rutgers for more than forty years. He produced and moderated the prizewinning weekly public television series, The Open Mind, and for twenty years was chairman of the motion picture industry’s film rating system.
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