At a dinner party on the American east coast last week with guests from finance, tech, academia and a former senator, one of my neighbours whispered across the table: “Do you think we are living in Leopoldstadt?”

For those who have not seen Tom Stoppard’s multi-award-winning play of that name, it centres on a Viennese Jewish family who initially dismiss the threats of the Nazis as fantastical but later pay a terrible price.

Financial Times