I am indebted to the people who facilitated the encounters in this book. Dr. Ahmed Zewail introduced me to King Salman bin Abdulaziz in Riyadh, US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in New York, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir in Khartoum, President Moncef Marzouki in Tunisia, Prince Karim Aga Khan, and the artist Fairouz in Beirut.
Dr. Ismail Serageldin introduced me to the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in The Hague, Dr. Taha Abdel-Alim helped me meet the Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov in Malta, and Professor Abdel-Qader Al-Jaridi introduced me to the Algerian President Ahmed Ben Bella.
Through my work at Al-Ahram, I met President Michel Aoun in Washington, Lebanese Prime Minister Salim al-Hoss in Beirut, and Aleida Guevara at the Al-Ahram Foundation. In Libya, I met the first President of Zambia, Kenneth Kaunda, the President of Bangladesh, Hussain Ershad, and the French philosopher Roger Garaudy. In Tirana, I met Albanian President Ilir Meta. In Abu Dhabi, I met Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Cheikh Ghazouani and Senegalese President Macky Sall.
Through my program "The First Edition", I met French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas, French National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, and former Vietnamese Empress Thi Phong.
On the Nobel front, I met Professor Naguib Mahfouz and wrote the second introduction after his first introduction to the book "The Age of Science," and I met Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei in Vienna, and I visited dozens of cities around the world with Dr. Ahmed Zewail.
The chapters of this book begin with these encounters, then move on to what surrounds them... in politics, history and philosophy.