Book Timothy Garton Ash

Timothy Garton Ash is a British historian, author and commentator whose work illuminates the recent history of Europe, especially Central and Eastern Europe. At Oxford he holds emeritus status as a professor of European Studies, and he is also a Senior Fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution. Educated at Exeter College and St Antony's College, Oxford, he studied in both West and East Berlin, becoming the first exchange student between East Germany and Britain, and the surveillance he experienced there became the basis of his 1997 book The File. George Kennan called him a historian of the present. His books include The Uses of Adversity: Essays on the Fate of Central Europe (1989), The Magic Lantern: The Revolution of ’89 Witnessed in Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin, and Prague (1990), History of the Present and Free World, and he has written for The Guardian, The Independent, The Spectator and The New York Review of Books. His many honors include the Charlemagne Prize, the Orwell Prize, the Somerset Maugham Award, the Theodor Heuss Award and the 2026 Princess of Asturias Award for Social Sciences. He brings authority on Europe, democracy and free speech.