(USA, 1969) is a internationally leading historian specialising in Central and Eastern Europe, Russia and the Holocaust. The professor of History at Yale University has published influential studies such as Nationalism, Marxism, and Modern Central Europe: A Biography of Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz (1998); The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569-1999 (2003); Sketches from a Secret War: A Polish Artist’s Mission to Liberate Soviet Ukraine (2005); The Red Prince: The Secret Lives of a Habsburg Archduke (2008); Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin (2010), Thinking the Twentieth Century (with Tony Judt, 2012); Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning (2015); On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century (2017); and The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America (2018) and the highly topical On Freedom (2024).

(The Netherlands, 1998) is a reviewer, essayist and podcast maker. Her work has appeared in weekly news magazine De Groene Amsterdammer, national Dutch daily newspaper de Volkskrant, and the Nederlandse Boekengids, among others. In the podcast Boeken FM, Charlotte, poet and reviewer Ellen Deckwitz and writer and reviewer Joost de Vries tell you which book you should read. They take turns contributing a book - topical, relevant or just fantastic. Boeken FM is a podcast by book publisher Das Mag in collaboration with De Groene Amsterdammer and podcast ad network Dag en Nacht Media.