Interview Chain, The

Everyone has something interesting to say if you take the time to listen. The Interview Chain is a series of conversations—each interviewee was asked to nominate someone they admire as the next link. Starting from a casual conversation on a boat on the Thames, the chain wended its way for over 23,000 miles, alighting on three continents and gathering up personal perspectives on issues that really matter in the world today. The interviewees include a theatre director, a rabbi, a philanthropist, a sculptor, a New York Mayoral candidate, a pioneering documentary maker, and a man who rescues giant trees. Some have worked in challenging places—Kabul in the time of the Taliban, a Romanian orphanage, immigration detention centres, remote Indian villages—while others have found themselves caught up in extraordinary situations such as the Rwandan genocide, the Ferguson uprising, and the UN Climate Change Negotiations. This is the most lovely approach to tell social change stories that I have read about ever, and it is an overwhelming honor to be part of this book. Ruth Messinger, Global Ambassador to the American Jewish World Service and former New York City political leader.