THOMAS PIKETTY is professor of economics at the Paris School of Economics and theEcole des hautes etudes en sciences sociale, and Centennial Professor at the London School of Economics's International InequalitiesInstitute. He is the author of numerous articles and a dozen books. He has done major historical and theoretical work on the interplay between economic development and the distribution of income and wealth. His most recent book is Capital in the Twenty-First Century.

Narrator L.J. Ganser has performed voiceovers for over 100 radio and TV commercials and has appeared in episodes of The Guiding Light, As the World Turns, and Another World. He is also active on stage, appearing in many New York and regional theater productions including Pump Boys and Dinettes, Arsenic and Old Lace, and Cloud 9.

Arthur Goldhammer, a translator specializing in French history, literature, philosophy, and social science, has translated more than a hundred works by many of France's most noted authors. He is on the editorial board of the journal French Politics, Culture and Society and in 1996 was named Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Minister of Culture.