These flaws aside, Homelands is an engaging read, not least because of Garton Ash’s amiability. Unlike many British liberals of his generation, he has no tendency for crotchetiness (there is no railing at “wokeness”) or a debating-society benevolence for the arguments of the far right. He is as critical of Viktor Orbán’s filleting of Hungarian civil society as he is of the communists he and Orbán once railed against. You can’t but admire such consistency. Oliver Farry a second birthday, a true rebirth', because 'the wholehistory of the world attaches itself to this place'... Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Italienische Reise, entry for December 3, 1786. My business is to record what people say, but I'm by no means bound to believe it'… Herodotus, The Histories, 7:152and see Mabel L. Lang, Herodotus: Oral History with a Difference, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 128(2), pp.93-103.

I give here the sources for all quotations in the text, apart from those that come directly from my notebooks, diaries and recollections. Almost Homelands does well at distinguishing the author’s (68er and post-68er) generational cohorts from that of the “Born-Frees” of the post-89er cohorts (Garton Ash borrows the fitting expression from South Africa). He admittedly paints with a broad brush, but accurately enough, when he says that he and his ilk have managed to raise the next generation with attitudes that were “anti-imperialist, anti-fascist, anti-war, internationalist, educationalist, environmentalist, agnostic if not atheist, sexually liberated and socially liberal.” As a member of the “pre-89er” cohort, I deeply appreciate the achievement, and consider myself a beneficiary. At least 8 million people died in the Russian civil war… Evan Mawdsley, The Russian Civil War, Allen & Unwin, Boston/London 1987 and see https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/highest-death-toll-from-a-civil-warAs a sober kind of Euro-Atlanticist, Garton Ash recognizes that it was always likely that the interests and priorities of Europe and the United States would diverge after the Cold War. He sounds more forward-looking and assertive though when emphasizing how essential a partnership with the US and all other liberal democracies remains in an increasingly post-Western world and how such a partnership would need to be combined with an embrace of the many people who live in unfree countries but “yearn to breathe free.” In short, whereas Timothy Garton Ash’s discussion of the European project at times resembles – and understandably so – that of a disappointed lover, making for a strange contrast between the first and the second halves of Homelands, his youthful liberal idealism still echoes in this articulation of a more global vision. Drawing on half a century of firsthand experience and exemplary scholarship, Timothy Garton Ash tells the story of postwar Europe’s triumphs and tragedies For cost savings, you can change your plan at any time online in the “Settings & Account” section. If you’d like to retain your premium access and save 20%, you can opt to pay annually at the end of the trial. A fluent and authoritative account of Europe since the Second World War, punctuated by vivid personal vignettes . . . from a passionate pro-European.”— Literary Review A crowd made up mostly of young people sit, stand, and climb the graffiti-covered Berlin Wall in 1989.

There was by now a large proportion of non-believers...see this Pew polling done in 2017 https://www.pewforum.org/2018/05/29/being-christian-in-western-europe/pf_05-29-18_religion-western-europe-00-00/ I toppen af eliten, symboliseret ved Davos, troede man, at man var det nye Rom. Ingen ser Europa somGarton Ashthe language of Europe is translation'... Umberto Eco reportedly said this at a lecture given at the conference of ATLAS Assises de la traduction littéraire in Arles, 14 November 1993. Drawing on half a century of interviews and experience, Homelands tells the story of Europe in the later twentieth and early twenty-first centuries - how, having emerged from its wartime hell in 1945, it slowly recovered and rebuilt, liberated and united to come close to the ideal of a Europe 'whole, free and at peace'. And then faltered. One does not say no to Plato'… Stephen Wall, Reluctant European. Britain and the European Union from 1945 to Brexit, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2020, fn. 4 on p.141. Wall confirms he had this directly from the source. 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."

Homelands is an illuminating and accessible work on a mammoth subject: Europe. . . . A stunning combination of memoir, reportage and history.”—Lucy Popescu, Camden New Journal Aquis Sestis is Aix-en-Provence, Aquinco is Budapest,... see the index at https://www.tabula-peutingeriana.de/list.html?alfa=a#A

of living space in Düsseldorf was uninhabitable… Walter Lacqueur, Europe since Hitler. The Rebirth of Europe, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth 1982, p.16. Having sketched the above with masterful touches, Garton Ash is also cognizant of European integration’s frequently ironic and often rather disappointing consequences. As a Brit, he is all too acutely aware of how being proficient in foreign languages is a matter that continues to divide many European societies in two. He does not hide that, decades of deepening interconnections notwithstanding, Europe’s core political conundrum – the uneasy balance between unity and diversity, between “dreams of Rome” and “dreams of escaping from it” – has by and large been reproduced in the decades since the days of his youth. Bogen er ikke 'bare' en reportagebog – selv om forfatteren er en fremragende reporter – nej, den er oveni en intellektuel bedrift af de helt suveræne.