Bernard-Hen­ri Lévy is a French philoso­pher, direc­tor of eight films, and author of forty-eight books. Lévy is one of the West­’s fore­most intel­lec­tu­als, defend­ing democ­ra­cy and human­ism against total­i­tar­i­an­ism and fas­cism. His recent books include The Will to See: Dis­patch­es from a World of Mis­ery and Hope (2021), The Virus in the Age of Mad­ness (2020), The Empire and the Five Kings (2019), The Genius of Judaism (2017), Amer­i­can Ver­ti­go: Trav­el­ing Amer­i­ca in the Foot­steps of Toc­queville (2005), and Who Killed Daniel Pearl? (2003).

Lévy has made films on the war in Bosnia; Libya; Iraqi Kur­dis­tan besieged by ISIS; and Afghanistan, Soma­lia, Bangladesh, Nige­ria, and Ukraine.

Lévy’s work as an intel­lec­tu­al, a writer, and a film-mak­er is inter­twined with human­i­tar­i­an activism. For fifty years, Lévy has report­ed on the world’s ​“for­got­ten wars” and devot­ed numer­ous books, films, and arti­cles to these crises. Lévy has par­tic­i­pat­ed in var­i­ous peace plans and con­tacts with Israeli lead­ers from Men­achem Begin to Shi­mon Peres, and from Ariel Sharon, Yitzak Shamir and Yitzhak Rabin.