Conversations with Elie Wiesel is a far-ranging dialogue with the Nobel Peace Prize-winner on the major issues of our time and on life's timeless questions. 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. From the Hardcover edition.
Elie Wiesel, the 1986 Nobel Prize Winner, Holocaust survivor, and author of more than 40 books, has something to say about almost everything. Conversations with Elie Wiesel, containing highlights from more than 20 television interviews with journalist Richard D. Heffner, gathers some of Wiesel's best thoughts on subjects such as "The Intellectual in Public Life," "On Being Politically Correct" "Religion, Politics... and Tolerance." The book has a few broad, unifying themes--most notably the dynamics of individual and community responsibility, and the proper role of the state in our lives. But Conversations contains no sustained arguments. It is, instead, the record of a mind in action--the passionate thoughts of a person whose confidence in the significance of his own life is the ground of his generosity towards others:
I have the feeling, honestly, that my life is an offering. I could have died every minute between '44 and '45. So once I have received this gift, I must justify it. And the only way to justify life is by affirming the right to life of anyone who needs such affirmation.
--Michael Joseph Gross
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 5.0 / 5.0
A moral voice for the Mankind:
Elie Wiesel here speaks with Richard Heffern on major questions of our moral and ethical life. The fourteen chapters of this work discuss such questions as "Am I My Brother's Keeper" " The Role of the Intellectual In Public Life" " The State: Its Proper Role in Our Life " " On Being Politically Correct" "Nationalism and Upheaval" " The Anatomy of Hate"
"Taking Life Can it be an Act of Compassion?" " Making ourselves over in whose Image?" " The Mystic character of Memory" " Anti-Semitism"
more info
Written by a master:
How does one review a book by Wiesel? He speaks the truth, is a modern day "righteous Jew", and makes one think of the meanings of life
Thought-provoking conversations:
Elie Wiesel is an extraordinary figure in history and literature. As a Jew who survived the Holocaust and horrors of the concentration camps when he was but a child, he has spent his life questioning the very nature of his faith and his fellow human beings. In "Conversations With Elie Wiesel" readers are given the opportunity to hear his viewpoint on a wide range of topics that concern America, and the entire world, today. These conversations have been honed from numerous interviews with Richard D.... more info
