Andreas Austilat is the deputy editor of the Sunday supplement of Der Tagesspiegel, Berlin’s leading daily, where he has worked since 1987. He interviewed many celebrities—such as Rosanne Cash (daughter of Johnny Cash), architect David Chipperfield, fashion designer Tommy Hilfinger, as well as authors Ian Kershaw and Kathy Reichs—, and also the last survivors of the gigantic airship “Hindenburg,” which crashed in 1937 in Lakehurst, New Jersey, after its transatlantic journey. He also discovered the lost copies of the oldest existing Titanic movie filmed in 1912, the year of the Titanic disaster; it was hidden in a Berlin archive. He published three travel and culture guides about Brandenburg and a history book about Zehlendorf, an affluent Berlin suburb. Austilat was born in Berlin, where he lives with his wife, his two children—a boy and a girl—and their dog Duffy. He studied history at the Free University and at first wanted to become a teacher, but decided switch to journalism early on.

Lewis H. Lapham, born 1935, is an American writer. He was the editor of the American monthly Harper’s Magazine from 1976 until 1981, and from 1983 until 2006. He is also the founder of Lapham’s Quarterly, and has written more than a dozen books on politics and current affairs. His writing has appeared in The American Conservative, Life, Commentary, Vanity Fair, National Review, Yale Literary Magazine, ELLE, Fortune, Forbes, American Spectator, The New York Times, The Walrus, Maclean’s, The Observer (London), and the Wall Street Journal. Lapham also served as a judge for the PEN/Newman’s Own First Amendment Award. In addition, Lapham is the host and author of the PBS series, America’s Century as well as the host of The World in Time: radio discussions with scholars and historians on Bloomberg Radio. He is also on the Board of Trustees of the Advisory Council of the Mark Twain House in Hartford, Connecticut.