Video Interview: Simon Schama

NEW YORK: Simon Schama, the legendary historian, author and professor of art history and history at Columbia University, talks in this video interview about the importance of finding connections between the past and the present.

Simon Schama’s eloquent and elegant command of the English language gives him the unique ability to make complex concepts accessible to the general public.

He has used his skill in several television series for the BBC and PBS, including two films on Rembrandt; a five-part series based on his book Landscape and Memory; the award-winning, Emmy-nominated 15-part A History of Britain; the eight-part Power of Art and The American Future: A History, which aired around the presidential election of 2008.

Often provocative, always eye-opening, Schama firmly believes in finding the connections between the past and the present because, as he explains in this video interview, not only do we learn from events in history, but so often they still influence what happens today. Schama has a number of TV programs in the works: two films on Shakespeare’s historical plays and an immensely ambitious series on the history of the triangulation between Jews, Muslims and Christians. Sound daunting? Well, if it were simple it wouldn’t be of interest to Professor Schama.