Changing the world with the stroke of a pen

From Rameses the Great to Donald the Orange, British historian Simon Sebag Montefiore has unearthed letters from three millennia that have shaped the fate of mankind. Rarely has a history lesson been so much fun.

Forgetting is the blessing and curse of modern times. Barely a few decades ago, pen and paper reigned supreme: J. Robert Oppenheimer, “father of the atomic bomb,” penned desperate warnings of his diabolical creation; Simon Bolivar, El Libertador, energetically recorded his disgust with the ungovernable New World; Tito, Yugoslavia’s square jawed strongman, took Jospeh Stalin’s assassination attempt personally and set down his retaliatory threats in writing.

Changing the world with the stroke of a pen
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