Timothy Garton AshCMGFRSA (born 12 July 1955) is a British historian, author and commentator. He is Professor of European Studies at Oxford University. Most of his work has been concerned with the contemporary history of Europe, with a special focus on Central and Eastern Europe.
For postgraduate study he went to St Antony's College, Oxford, and then, in the still divided Berlin, the Free University in West Berlin and the Humboldt University in East Berlin. During his studies in East Berlin, he was under surveillance from the Stasi, which served as the basis for his 1997 book The File.[3] Garton Ash cut a suspect figure to the Stasi, who regarded him as a "bourgeois-liberal" and potential British spy.[4]
Although he denies being or having been a British intelligence operative, Garton Ash described himself as a "soldier behind enemy lines" and described the German Democratic Republic as a "very nasty regime indeed".[4]
In 2005, Garton Ash was listed in Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people.[9] The article says that "shelves are where most works of history spend their lives. But the kind of history Garton Ash writes is more likely to lie on the desks of the world's decision makers."
Geopolitics
Garton Ash describes himself as a liberal internationalist.[10] He is a supporter of what he calls the free world and liberal democracy, represented in his view by the European Union, the United States as a superpower, and Angela Merkel's leadership of Germany. Garton Ash opposed Scottish independence and argued for Britishness, writing in The Guardian: "being British has changed into something worth preserving, especially in a world of migration where peoples are going to become ever more mixed up together. As men and women from different parts of the former British empire have come to live here in ever larger numbers, the post-imperial identity has become, ironically but not accidentally, the most liberal, civic, inclusive one."[11]
Garton Ash first came to prominence during the Cold War as a supporter of free speech and human rights within countries which were part of the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc, paying particular attention to Poland and Germany. In more recent times he has represented a British liberal pro-EU viewpoint, nervous at the rise of Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump and Brexit. He is strongly opposed to conservative and populist leaders of EU nations, such as Viktor Orbán of Hungary, arguing that Merkel should "freeze him out", evoking "appeasement".[12] Garton Ash was particularly upset about Orbán's move against George Soros' Central European University.[12] Anti-Soviet themes and Poland remain topics of interest for Garton Ash; once a promoter of the anti-Eastern Bloc movement in Poland, he notes with regret the move away from liberalism and globalism towards populism and authoritarianism under socially conservative political and religious leaders such as Jarosław Kaczyński, in a similar manner to his criticisms of Hungary's Orbán.[13]
Personal life
Garton Ash and his Polish-born wife Danuta live primarily in Oxford, England, and also near Stanford University in California as part of his work with the Hoover Institution.[14] They have two sons, Tom Ash, a web developer based in Canada, and Alec Ash, an author and editor focused on China.[14] His elder brother, Christopher, is a Church of England clergyman.[15]
Bibliography
Und willst du nicht mein Bruder sein ... Die DDR heute (Rowohlt, 1981) ISBN3-499-33015-6
The Polish Revolution: Solidarity, 1980–82 (Scribner, 1984) ISBN0-684-18114-2
The Uses of Adversity: Essays on the Fate of Central Europe (Random House, 1989) ISBN0-394-57573-3
The Magic Lantern: The Revolution of 1989 Witnessed in Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin, and Prague (Random House, 1990) ISBN0-394-58884-3
In Europe's Name: Germany and the Divided Continent (Random House, 1993) ISBN0-394-55711-5
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Ian Angus was a British librarian and a scholar on George Orwell.
Karolina Wigura is a sociologist, historian of ideas and journalist. She is Member of the Board of Kultura Liberalna Foundation, which publishes Kultura Liberalna, one of Poland's leading weekly magazines. She is also a Senior Fellow of the Zentrum Liberale Moderne (LibMod), an assistant professor at Warsaw University's Institute of Sociology and a member of the European Council on Foreign Relations.
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The Prague European Summit is a platform for a regular high-level strategic debate on the future of the European Union and other European issues. It is the only platform of this kind focused on the European Union in Central and Eastern Europe. It offers space for an informal dialogue among political representatives, high-ranking state officials, representatives of interest groups, businessmen, academicians and journalists.
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