Timothy Garton Ash
Timothy Garton Ash
Timothy Garton Ash CMG FRSAis a British historian, author and commentator. He is Professor of European Studies at Oxford University. Much of his work has been concerned with the late modern and contemporary history of Central and Eastern Europe...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth12 July 1955
jobs taken red
Every step that produces a single job for a currently unemployed European should be taken. Every centimetre of red tape that puts someone out of work must be torn up.
thinking europe forever
I'm a historian by training and by conviction. And so the thing that has throughout informed my thinking about international relations is history. I think, for example, the reason that I was perhaps able to see sooner than some others that the Soviet Empire in Eastern Europe was decaying--if not disintegrating--was that I came to it through history and through Germany, rather than through Sovietology and through Moscow. And therefore the starting point was that no empire in history has lasted forever, and this one won't either.
running europe people
People feel that European institutions are remote and bureaucratic, run by shady cosmopolitan elites. Britain is not absolutely exceptional because if you look at the opinion polls, those sentiments are now quite widespread also in continental Europe.
democracy east administration
A central claim of the Bush administration's foreign policy is that the spread of democracy in the Middle East is the cure for terrorism.
lying hero men
Facts are subversive. Subversive of the claims made by democratically elected leaders as well as dictators, by biographers and autobiographers, spies and heroes, torturers and post-modernists. Subversive of lies, half-truths, myths; of all those "easy speeches that comfort cruel men.
europe problem
Europe's biggest problem is its success.
writing europe feelings
I have a dreadful feeling in my bones that future historians may write of the May 2014 elections: "This was the wake-up call from which Europe failed to wake up.
creativity europe diversity
To be in Florence is to reflect on Europe's intricate diversity - and its lost creativity.
europe turkeys doe
After saying yes to Turkey, the EU is having difficulty finding clear and consistent grounds for saying no to other, still more remote candidates - but being in the general vicinity of Europe does seem to be a continuing requirement.
keys survival liberty
The key to the survival of liberty in the modern world is the embrace of multiple identities.
past violence kind
One thing, however, I know with certainty: violence, or the direct threat of violence, of the kind we have seen in the past few days, is totally unjustified as a response to any published word or image.
gone economy eurozone
The Eurozone has clearly gone spectacularly wrong, pulling down all the continental economies.
country heart unions
I love this country, but the union jack leaves me cold.
weakness criminals reactions
I have also been saddened, though hardly surprised, by the weakness of the EU's reaction to the criminal attack on the Danish embassy in Syria, which seems to have been permitted, if not actively encouraged, by the Syrian regime.