Brief Encounters (Electronic book text)

100 articles on meetings between historical figures explore the details of famous (and some not so famous) conversations and events. Meetings range from the time of the ancient Greeks to the present day. Articles explain why meetings were important (although some are just funny or downright bizarre). Historical context explains what happened next. This informative and entertaining look at our past and present explores the pleasantries, pardons, interrogations and arguments that have passed between the likes of Jackie Kennedy and Princess Diana, Lew Wallace and Billy the Kid, Kurt Waldheim and John Simpson, Queen Victoria and Black Elk, and JS Bach and Frederick the Great. The meetings in this book offer a unique perspective on brief moments in our history. As Donald Rumsfeld (who almost made it into the book) would perhaps put it, this is stuff as it happened, and we are all interested in stuff.