The Octavian Report | Summer 2019

Glass Half Full

One of the greatest modern political leaders explains what COVID means for the political and economic shape of the future.

Paul Romer on Why We Need $100 Billion for Testing

Testing Well

An Interview with Paul Romer

The Nobel-winning economist explains the ins and and outs of the massive testing program we need to keep COVID at bay and reopen.

Full of Passionate Intensity

An Interview with Sir Mervyn King

The former Governor of the Bank of England talks about why our obsession with modeling and quantifying brings with it systemic risks.

Self-Healed Physician

An interview with Laura Marris

A translator on why Camus and his novel of plague speak to us in this dark moment.

Emily de La Bruyère on China's BRI borrower squeeze

Squeeze Play

by Emily de La Bruyère

China's is making a soft-power play around its creditors in the midst of the COVID pandemic.

Andrew Roberts on Churchill vs. the Spanish Flu

Resilience

An Interview with Andrew Roberts

The best-selling historian shows us that real leadership, like Churchill's, does matter in times of crisis.

James Shapiro on Shakespeare's Plague Years

A Pox on All Our Houses

An Interview with James Shapiro

The leading Shakespeare scholar examines the playwright's difficult and dark relationship with the plague that devastated his nation.

Feverish City

An Interview with Tom Holland

The best-selling historian take a look at a pandemic that changed the course of ancient history.

The Pale Horse

An Interview with John Barry

The award-winning historian explains why the Spanish Flu did so much damage and what we can learn from it as we move through the COVID crisis.

The New New Economy

An Interview with Adam Tooze

A leading historian lays out the economic transformation COVID has wrought, and why it carries global risks.

Mark Braude on Napoleon's Quarantine on Elba

The Emperor's New Digs

An Interview with Mark Braude

The man who reshaped Europe spent a long time in isolation, with results that no-one predicted.

Don't Know Much

An Interview with David Dunning

The eminent psychology professor and co-discoverer of the Dunning-Kruger Effect on what we know, what we don't, and what we don't know we don't know.

Ethan Stiefel on modern ballet and choreography

Dance First, Think Afterwards

An Interview with Ethan Stiefel

A renowned dancer and artistic director talks about his unconventional career.

Ceasefire?

An Interview with Yohanan Plesner

A former cabinet minister and Knesset member and current head of the Israel Democracy Institute talks about the political situation in Israel.

How Sweet Readers Fights COVID Isolation and Alzheimer's

Book of Life

Karen Young founded an organization to help Alzheimer's patients. In the post-COVID world, that effort looks radically different.

Light in the Darkness

The religious symbol with the longest history of use has meant many things to many different groups, Jewish and otherwise.

Andrew Blauner on the genius of <em>Peanuts</em>

Good Old Charlie Brown

An Interview with Andrew Blauner

Charles Schulz's Peanuts can still delight, sadden, and fascinate us seven decades after it premiered in newspapers. We spoke with the editor of a Peanuts writing anthology about why.

Dear Friends,

The world has changed dramatically in the past 18 months. More than ever we need real information, real ideas and real wisdom. We hope our latest issue brings you just that.

Tony Blair is one of the most important and influential political leaders of the last three decades. In our exclusive interview with the former British Prime Minister, we talked about the world COVID has made, whether Western democracy has arrived at an inflection point, and what to do to save it.

And we are thrilled that MacArthur winner Sarah Sze, one of the most innovative artists working today, has contributed powerful imagery to accompany this issue.

Historian Adam Tooze offers up his thoughts on COVID as the first crisis of the Anthropocene Age and the economic transformation it has wrought. And former Bank of England chief Sir Mervyn King explains why radical uncertainty should be the governing concept of risk analysis in the post-COVID era.

Covid has caused a crisis of leadership and we look at how humanity has dealt with prior pandemics. Classicist Tom Holland takes us through the plague that befell Athens in the early years of the Peloponnesian War, and charts the destruction both physical and metaphysical it inflicted. John Barry, the award-winning historian, draws out lessons from the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 and looks for accountability among officials at that time; Andrew Roberts looks at the policy response of Winston Churchill to the Spanish flu. David Dunning – discoverer of the Dunning-Kruger effect, spoke to us about how data, knowledge, and understanding are not synonymous. And Mark Braude shows us what happens when an emperor, in this case Napoleon, goes into quarantine, and what it meant for Bonaparte, France, and the rest of Europe.

Covid has also wreaked havoc geopolitically. China expert Emily de la Bruyere offers a trenchant take on China’s soft power play around loan forgiveness and its own effort to squeeze its debtors under the Belt and Road Initiative. Yohanan Plesner explains why the unity government in Israel might offer a unique political opportunity. Freedom House director Michael Abramowitz analyzes the state of global freedom and finds bright spots amid all the worrying signs (these accelerated by the pandemic).

The coronavirus pandemic may seem unprecedented, but pandemic disease and plague have been part of life for millennia, affecting our culture profoundly. Translator Laura Marris talks about what it’s like to work on a new translation of The Plague as a virus damages society in real time, and why Camus offers lessons worth learning still today. James Shapiro digs deep into what the plague meant for Shakespeare as an artist and as a person and finds frightening new resonances in his plays.

We are starting a new program where we plan to feature a different charity in each issue we feel is worthy of broader attention. We are thrilled to begin with Sweet Readers, which matches Alzheimer’s patients and middle school children in a beautiful symbiosis.

Of course, we all need a break from COVID. Legendary dancer Ethan Stiefel talks about the world of ballet and Andrew Blauner explains the genius and enduring magic of Charles M. Schulz and Peanuts. And there is perhaps no better symbol of hope than the menorah, which has now been shining throughout history for millennia. We spoke to historian Stephen Fine about the powerful ideas and myths around the candelabrum, and why its light has held our attention for so long.

We end with the exciting announcement that our magazine is now a non-profit, published by our new foundation. We are dedicated to the mission of elevating ideas and providing a platform for the world’s greatest thinkers, experts, and intellectuals to offer their insights to as broad an audience as possible. We hope you join us in helping to restore the dialogue and enrich our lives.

Best wishes for peace and prosperity.

Sincerely,
Richard Hurowitz
Publisher