Epiphanies from Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

Nigeria's finance minister on resource curses, African growth, and why America shouldn't be so smug about corruption.

INTERVIEW BY JOSHUA E. KEATING | MARCH 4, 2013

Epiphanies from Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The "Black Swan" theorist reflects on the most stable country in human history and the folly of the European Union.

INTERVIEW BY BENJAMIN PAUKER | NOVEMBER 2012

Epiphanies from C. Fred Bergsten

The veteran economist and Washington power-player on China, currency wars, and working with Henry Kissinger.

INTERVIEW BY DANIEL W. DREZNER | JULY/AUGUST 2012

Epiphanies from Shimon Peres

The Middle East's real problem is poverty, not politics, says Israel's president.

INTERVIEW BY DAVID KENNER | MARCH/APRIL 2012

Epiphanies from Nandan Nilekani

"Seattle has Bill," Thomas Friedman once wrote. "Bangalore has Nandan." The co-founder of Infosys -- the Indian company that made "outsourcing" a household word -- famously gave Friedman the central conceit for The World Is Flat when he said that global commerce's "playing field is being leveled" by communications technology. Now tasked with providing digital IDs to 1.2 billion Indians, Nandan Nilekani is trying to finish the job he started in the private sector: bringing a country that never entirely left the 19th century all the way into the 21st.

INTERVIEW BY CHARLES HOMANS | NOVEMBER 2011

Epiphanies from Henry Kissinger

America's most famous diplomat reflects on a very revolutionary 2011, the rise of China, and the prospects for a new Cold War.

INTERVIEW BY BLAKE HOUNSHELL | JULY/AUGUST 2011

Epiphanies from Tariq Ramadan

The Swiss-born grandson of the Muslim Brotherhood's founder made his career trying to prove that the West and Islam, secularism and belief, can coexist peacefully. With his George W. Bush-era travel ban revoked, Tariq Ramadan has now journeyed back to the United States, where his faith in faith has been put to the test by a painful year for American Muslims.

INTERVIEW BY BENJAMIN PAUKER | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011

Epiphanies from George Papandreou

The scion of a socialist political dynasty, son of one prime minister and grandson of another, George Papandreou has also inherited the unwelcome task of bringing Greece's sinking economy back from the depths of the Aegean. Here, he explains how Greeks are more stoic than you think, that Europe isn't the problem -- and why markets are not gods.

INTERVIEW BY BENJAMIN PAUKER | SEPT. / OCT. 2010

Epiphanies: Jacqueline Novogratz

When Jacqueline Novogratz first traveled to Africa in 1986, she meant business -- the serious business of sharing her entrepreneurial know-how with the poor. Now, the founder of the Acumen Fund, a nonprofit venture capital firm that works in developing countries, tells FP why she first went abroad and why it's time to end the culture of handouts.  

INTERVIEW BY ELIZABETH DICKINSON | MAY/JUNE 2010

Epiphanies: Ashraf Ghani

Afghanistan's first postwar finance minister has now set his sights on reforming the country from the ground up, calling out his former boss, President Hamid Karzai, for corruption and failure. Here, the poetry-loving Pashtun speaks with FP about his troubled homeland's past and future.

INTERVIEW BY DAVID KENNER | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2010

Epiphanies: Wei Jingsheng

An unlikely dissident, imprisoned for almost two decades for his 1978 democratic tract "The Fifth Modernization," looks forward to China's democratic future.

INTERVIEW BY ELIZABETH DICKINSON | SEPT. / OCT. 2009

Epiphanies: Amartya Sen

The Nobel Prize-winning economist reflects on misguided policies, social disasters -- and whether he had it too easy.

APRIL 15, 2009

Epiphanies: Tony Blair

"I entered politics because I realized I was not going to play for Newcastle United and I was never going to be Mick Jagger."

JANUARY 5, 2009

Epiphanies: Francis Fukuyama

AUGUST 12, 2008