Would You Believe. . . When the Helsinki Accords were signed on August 1, 1975, the likelihood they would have a profound and lasting impact on the world were very small. Which is why a book about them after a half century is both surprisingly topical and well worth reading for anyone with an interest in modern history.

The thirty-five signatories were the nations of Europe, the United States and Canada at was formally known as the Conference of Security and Cooperation in Europe. The Final Act of CSCE contained detailed provisions on respect for human rights and set country borders that essentially held until Russia invaded Ukraine in February,2022.

Only 15 years after the summit signing, the Soviet Union imploded and its Eastern European satellites broke with Communism and the broad range of human rights issues -civil, social, economic, and political - were a major factor in this historic turning point.

Peter L.W. Osnos' expertise on the history of the accords is vast, as a journalist and publisher. His narrative writing skill is widely recognized. Holly Cartner provides a vivid account of how a small organization called Helsinki Watch became Human Rights Watch, the most important global NGO in its field.

Peter L.W.Osnos was born in Bombay (now Mumbai) India on October 13, 1943. He arrived in Los Angeles by ship with his parents and brother in February 1944. He was raised in New York and attended high school in Connecticut, college at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachisetts and graduate school at Columbia University., He worked as an assistant to the journalist I.F.Stone and joined The Washington Post in 1966. At the Post, Osnos served as a correspondent in Vietnam, the Soviet Union and London. He was also the national and foreign editor. In 1984, Osnos joined Random House as a senior editor and later associate publisher as well as publisher of the Times Books imprint. In 1997, he founded PublicAffairs in partnership with the Perseus Books Group and served as publisher and editor at large until 2020. He was the founder of the Caravan Project on the development of digital and audio publishing, author of a weekly media column called Platform which was hosted by The Century Foundation and appeared on TheAtlantic.com and in 2020, launched Platform Books LLC with his wife, Susan Sherer Osnos. The first book was "An Especially Good View: Watching History Happen" released in May, 2021. It is Osnos' memoir, distributed by Two Rivers/Ingram. He is also the editor of ?George Soros: A Life in Full? (Platform Books/Harvard Business Review Press, 2022). He is the father of two children, Evan Osnos and Katherine Sanford, and grandfather of five. He and his wife now live in New York City and Lakeside, Michigan.