"My First Life" is the story of Austrian-born Jewish entrepreneur Alexander Gertner. Seven international authors trace his career, reflecting on the economic, political, and cultural background of each phase of his life. Family, historical, and professional events and encounters shape a biography marked by the vicissitudes and opportunities of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Born in Austria, Gertner studied mechanical engineering and economics in Birmingham, and then moved to the US, where he worked in the steel industry before returning to Vienna as a junior partner in a company importing and exporting Soviet and Western European machine tools. The collapse of communism shifted Russia's economic relations to China – a turning point that prompted Gertner to move to Switzerland, where he has been an entrepreneur ever since.

Table of contents: Republic of Silence, Vienna, 1956–1974 (Doron Rabinovici); First Explorations of the World, Birmingham, 1975–1979 (Bernard Zissman); Steel City, Pittsburgh, 1980 (Alon Pinkas); The Austrian Way, Vienna, 1980–2008 (Doron Rabinovici); A Spring Night’s Dream, Soviet Union (Lev Vernik); A Proud Modern State with an Imperial Past, Turkey (Hay Eytan Cohen Yanarocak); Losing the American Dream, USA, 2008/2009 (Andreas Mink); Tu Felix Helvetia, Switzerland, since 2010 (Gabriel Heim); A Unique Miracle Called Israel (Alon Pinkas); Preface by Alexander Gertner