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]
(edited, with Adam Roberts, Michael J. Willis, and Rory McCarthy) Civil Resistance in the Arab Spring: Triumphs and Disasters (Oxford University Press, 2016) ISBN9780198749028
Obrona Liberalizmu (Fundacja Kultura Liberalna, 2022) ISBN 9788366619067
Homelands: A Personal History of Europe (Yale University Press, 2023)[16]ISBN9780300257076
Solidarity, full name Independent Self-Governing Trade Union "Solidarity", is a Polish trade union founded in August 1980 at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk, Poland. Subsequently, it was the first independent trade union in a Warsaw Pact country to be recognised by the state.
Fidesz – Hungarian Civic Alliance is a right-wing populist and national-conservative political party in Hungary, led by Viktor Orbán.
Viktor Mihály Orbán is a Hungarian lawyer and politician who has been Prime Minister of Hungary since 2010, previously holding the office from 1998 to 2002. He has led the Fidesz political party since 1993, with a break between 2000 and 2003.
TVN is a Polish free-to-air television station, network and a media and entertainment group in Poland. It was co-founded by Polish businessmen Mariusz Walter, Jan Wejchert and Swiss entrepreneur Bruno Valsangiacomo. It is owned by TVN Group, which as of April 2022, is a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. Current CEO is Katarzyna Kieli.
Jonathan Steele is a British journalist and the author of several books on international affairs.
TVN24 is a Polish 24-hour commercial news channel, launched on 9 August 2001. Being a part of the TVN Network, TVN24 has been owned since 2018 by US-based media company Warner Bros. Discovery. It gained broader popularity after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the US, which was the first major incident to be covered by TVN24. It is available over all digital platforms in Poland as well as in most cable networks and some networks in other countries, including USA and Germany. The audio portion of the channel can be streamed on the internet.
National conservatism is a nationalist variant of conservatism that concentrates on upholding national, cultural identity, communitarianism, and the public role of religion. It shares aspects of traditionalist conservatism and social conservatism, while departing from economic liberalism and libertarianism, as well as taking a more agnostic approach to regulatory economics and protectionism. National conservatives usually combine conservatism with nationalist stances, emphasizing cultural conservatism, family values and opposition to illegal immigration or opposition to immigration per se. National conservative parties often have roots in environments with a rural, traditionalist or peripheral basis, contrasting with the more urban support base of liberal conservative parties.
Ramin Jahanbegloo is an Iranian philosopher and academic based in Toronto, Canada.
Timothy David Snyder is an American historian specializing in the history of Central and Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and the Holocaust. He is the Richard C. Levin Professor of History at Yale University and a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna.
Liberal internationalism is a foreign policy doctrine that supports international institutions, open markets, cooperative security and liberal democracy. At its core, it holds that states should participate in international institutions that uphold rules-based norms, promote liberal democracy and facilitate cooperation on transnational problems.
The Lionel Gelber Prize is a literary award for English non-fiction books on foreign policy. Founded in 1989 by Canadian diplomat Lionel Gelber, the prize awards "the world’s best non-fiction book in English on foreign affairs that seeks to deepen public debate on significant international issues." A prize of CA$50,000 is awarded to the winner. The award is presented annually by the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto.
Civil resistance is a form of political action that relies on the use of nonviolent resistance by ordinary people to challenge a particular power, force, policy or regime. Civil resistance operates through appeals to the adversary, pressure and coercion: it can involve systematic attempts to undermine or expose the adversary's sources of power. Forms of action have included demonstrations, vigils and petitions; strikes, go-slows, boycotts and emigration movements; and sit-ins, occupations, constructive program, and the creation of parallel institutions of government.
Sándor Csoóri was a Hungarian poet, essayist, writer, and politician.
Dominique Moïsi is a French political scientist and writer.
Wiadomości is a Polish daily television news program that was produced by public-service broadcaster Telewizja Polska (TVP) and was broadcast on TVP1 from 18 November 1989 until 19 December 2023. The main edition was broadcast daily at 7:30p.m. CET. It premiered on 18 November 1989 and replaced the Dziennik Telewizyjny, which was aired during the communist era for over 31 years and was considered to be one of the communist government's mouthpiece.
Ian Angus was a British librarian and a scholar on George Orwell.
Florian Hoffmann is a German social entrepreneur, author, investor and founder of The DO. He speaks on topics including the green business transformation, innovation and the future of lifelong learning.
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.
The foreign policy of the Angela Merkel government has been the foreign policy of Germany when Merkel was in office as Chancellor of Germany from November 2005 to December 2021. During Merkel's chancellorship, Merkel has personally been highly active in the field of the foreign policy. She named Frank-Walter Steinmeier to serve as Minister for Foreign Affairs from 2005 to 2009; the office was subsequently held by Guido Westerwelle from 2009 to 2013, and again by Steinmeier from 2013. He was succeeded by Sigmar Gabriel in 2017, who was himself succeeded by Heiko Maas in 2018.
The British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding is a prize granted by the British Academy for "outstanding scholarly contributions to global cultural understanding". The prize is £25,000.
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