The\u00a0Engelsberg Ideas Portraits series gives pride of place to the secondary\u00a0figures who make the wheels of history whir and thrum. They include Churchill s half-forgotten right-hand man, a leading light of the Parisian Belle\u00a0Epoque lost to history, and an early space pioneer virtually unknown outside\u00a0of his native Russia. History belongs not only to the popularly renowned\u00a0but also to the other figures, the men and women who found their energies\u00a0suddenly borne along by events or who made a unique contribution to the\u00a0great debates of their time.\u00a0Throughout the series, leading writers show us how individuals shaped\u00a0the world as we know it, examining their successes as much as their failures\u00a0and delusions. The Anglo-German novelist W.G. Sebald wrote at the turn of\u00a0our century that everything is constantly lapsing into oblivion with every\u00a0extinguished life. In these portraits we find the dim traces left by interesting\u00a0lives lived and conscientiously restore them, so that they gleam once more, bright and alive in the present.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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