“The Last Ships from Hamburg” Book Talk with Steven Ujifusa and Chip Fisher

In The Last Ships from Hamburg: Business, Rivalry, and the Race to Save Russia’s Jews on the Eve of World War I, bestselling historian Steven Ujifusa tells the largely forgotten, colorful story of three remarkable businessmen who, driven by very different motives, made much of this immigration possible and forever changed the fate of millions. They were: Jacob Schiff, managing partner of the investment bank Kuhn, Loeb & Company who used his immense wealth to help Jews to leave Europe; Albert Ballin, managing director of the Hamburg-American Line who created a transportation network of trains and steamships; and the notorious J.P. Morgan, mastermind of the International Mercantile Marine (I.M.M.) trust who tried to take over the lucrative steamship business. With often contradictory goals, these titans of industry forged powerful alliances and compelling rivalries.

Ujifusa will be in discussion about the book with Chip Fisher, Chairman of Fisher Wallace Laboratories and a Principal of Ursus Advisory, a niche life consultancy practice.

Steven Ujifusa received his BA in history from Harvard University and has a master’s degree in historic preservation from the University of Pennsylvania. He has given presentations across the country and on the high seas and has appeared as guest on CBS Sunday Morning and NPR. A recipient of a MacDowell Colony fellowship and the Athenaeum of Philadelphia’s Literary Award, he lives with his wife, a pediatric emergency room physician, in Philadelphia. For more on Steven Ujifusa visit, www.stevenujifusa.com.

Chip Fisher is a lifelong New Yorker and the grandson of first generation immigrants, who arrived at Ellis Island on one of the boats described in Steven Ujifusa’s new book The Last Ships from Hamburg. He has studied his family’s progress in this country, since their arrival in 1905, and is also well versed on their story of escape from Kiev during the pogrom of that year. He is Chairman of Fisher Wallace Laboratories and a Principal of Ursus Advisory, a niche life consultancy practice. He lives in New York City with his wife Susan and has two sons, Will and Matt, who reside in NY and in San Francisco.