A little more than five years ago, out of the blue, I received in the mail a book contract for my then-new, NAME-DROPPINGS: CLOSE ENCOUNTERS WITH THE FAMOUS AND NEAR-FAMOUS. Because I had fired my agent, it was difficult to find a quality publisher, so I was elated by the unexpected book deal. My wife…

I found the story told by Ambassador Norman Eisen in THE LAST PALACE fascinating for a number of reasons. Perhaps chief among them is the fact that I lived, for the first twelve years of my life, less than ten miles from this place—one known as “the last palace constructed in Europe”—totally unaware of its…