History of the present. Essays, sketches and despatches from Europe in the 1990s

History of the Present: essays, sketches and despatches from Europe in the 1990's

This book continues the work that Timothy Garton Ash began with his trilogy of books about Central Europe in the 1980s, The Uses of Adversity, We The People, and The Polish Revolution combining the crafts of journalism and history. Here he chronicles the 1990s in a kaleidoscope of essays, sketches and despatches written as history was being made. The pieces reflect the author's own interests, expertise and travels and include a chronology running through the book to supply missing links between the pieces and to record significant European developments not covered in any of them. The largest part of the book consists of analytical reportages, mostly published in the New York Review of Books. Garton Ash has a direct line to the major players at the heart of Europe. In this book he visits the former East German leader Erich Honecker in prison, describes the brooding Lech Walesa in the aftermath of his election defeat, debates the role of the intellectual in politics with Vaclav Havel in Prague and discusses German unification with Margaret Thatcher at Chequers. He also tells the human stories of the individuals behind the headlines: a newspaper editor in Warsaw; a wiry old farmer in Croatia.

The book urges us to understand the lessons of the last ten years and is a personal plea that Western leaders play their role in creating a liberal order for the whole of Europe.