Customer Reviews

History of the Present: Essays, Sketches, and Dispatches from Europe in the 1990s

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I seized upon this book with eager expectation, as I had thoroughly enjoyed the author's essays in New York Review of Books. I was not disappointed as Garton Ash manages to maintain an overview and grasp of the whole, though some of the essays are short and almost ephemeral. His major point I agree with: Europe made a serious error in the early 90's by turning its back on the new democracies to the East, and going after greater integration of the West. The cost was disastrous in the Balkans - a war which might have been averted. Worse, European foreign policy was shown to be a complete sham, as the US (again) had to lead the countries of Europe to end genocide and terror within its confines. The book focusses on Poland, (former) East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, with forays into the Balkans (mainly former Yugoslavia. There is even a mid-90s meeting with the current President Kostunica of Serbia, when he was leading a small dissident party in protest against Milosovic. The author chronicles the end of Central Europe and the shift of 'the West' to the borders of Belorus and the Ukraine. The ending note is optimistic that Europe can overcome centuries of internecine warfare, and become peaceful and forward-looking. The irony that former communists now democratically lead most of the nations they once oppressed is not lost - 'creative amnesia' is celebrated in these pages. He disagrees with Huntington's clash of civilizations idea (that future conflict will be based on old religious modes of culture) by pointing out how Ruthenians (for example) straddle the Huntington divide. Highly recommended.

This is a wonderful book of sketches written "on the ground" in Europe in the 1990s. The author is a well-known journalist/intellectual who introduced the West to the Solidarity movement in Poland, and wrote the classic first-hand account of the Revolutions of 1989. This latest release is an engrossing collection of short academic-type essays and societal observations mainly of Central and Eastern Europe. Ash is a master of suscinct, on-the-mark and poignant observations. He draws his readers in and forces them to question the West's attitude toward the postcommunist states, and realize the truth of life in those countries. For anyone interested in this region, or the eastern expansion of the EU and of the idea of "Europe".

Despite its rather pretentious title, this is a very informative collection of essays on Central and Eastern Europe during the 1990s. Garton Ash has a particularly intimate knowledge of Germany, Poland and the Czech lands, both past and present. His training as a historian and his practical journalistic work in the region make him eminently qualified to write a `history' of the region's recent past. The only flaws in this book are the several chapters that deal with the former Yugoslavia, as this is an area about which the author knows less (he doesn't speak any of the local languages) and his work suffers for it. The main problem is that he only began visiting the former Yugoslav lands after 1995, and depends on secondary and second-hand sources for his knowledge of wartime events from 1990 to 1995. Thus, he lacks the first-hand experience of the local circumstances that make his observations of Germany, Poland or the former Czechoslovakia so acute. (To his credit, and in contrast to most foreign correspondents, Garton Ash does quite candidly admit that he was playing the war tourist in his trips to Bosnia.) Nevertheless, these shortcomings are compensated by other parts of the book; particularly interesting is the chapter on the Ruthenians - that typical Eastern European stateless nation. Garton Ash is also at his best when discussing the future prospects of a united Europe and the role of Germany in this new continental political order.

HISTORY OF THE PRESENT, hands down, is a tough book to read, folks.

Less so because of its content and more due to its style, TGA lords us over with several compelling viewpoints in this thick tome, miraculously still valid more than six (6) years after it went through its first editorial review.

Alright, let's take you through some of the good points, kids:

** timeless on the ground Central and Eastern European snapshots from the perspective of a non-native caught up in the heady times of pre- and post-revolutionary Poland and the former Czechoslovakia. In reading about these events told through the contact-lensed eyes of a foreigner, I found it beneficial to my own expatriate experience here in the Golden Captial of the Former Czechoslovakia. Ash's take on the region's history was another side of the coin not typically accounted for in the historical recollections of this period. Let me just admit to all of you unsuspecting types, that if one was looking for an overview of the period from here in Praha, for instance, chances are you'd get the event through the eyes of a "Czech" person. I appreciated Ash's chronicling of the time for this reason and many, many, many more.

** heaps of details about German unification, which I'd never known about, and which -- thanks to said intrepid Englishness for going where no bobby nor copper nor rock star (any other cliches I missed out on?) has gone before -- Ash supplies a radically-different angle than the traditional so-called primary source material. Czechs, Poles, Hungarians, or former Yugoslavs talking about it themselves. Like in the case of the rest of the world's dilemmas, especially in "Israel," it's best to have the world's media or others not directly involved with the issue to render their opinions. Of course, these are usually the more "objective" opinions. Don't you agree?

** a nice chronological interlude between Ash's long-winded smarter-by-half essays, giving dates and times of relevant and specific events that helped to situate the particular reader in the moment. Good on ya! Between 1989-2000, t'was. That's eleven strong years of some of the most contentious stuff of the latter half of the 20th century. I'm sure Ash collected more than his fair share of frequent flier miles. What an amazing person. I wish I could be him.

** a nice font, crisp and lovely-smelling pages, a nice colour-coordinated theme, so that people in the cafes where I'd been frequenting with the book didn't think I was reading some propagandist piece of written slop re-issued by the reconstituted Czech Commie Party. Way to go to the publisher for that bit of prophetic printed genius. Vintage, you're publishing my next book. Hands down.

~~~

Alright, now for some of the bad stuff:

** Ease up on the holier-than-thou refrences there, bad boy! Ash seems to be another one of those sharp analytical minds who fears that if he doesn't use the most intellectually-advanced lingo for even the most elementary of concepts that we're passive-aggressively going to accuse him of being dim-witted and obtuse. Ease up Ash-ster! Don't worry, we'll still get you even if you speak to us like a bunch of drunken sailors. Stop alienating us and, rather, invite us into your argument, instead of causing us to rise off our chairs to seek out the Funk and Wagnalls. Alright? Cool down, Mr. Smarty-Pants.

** Too much love of Germany. What's the angle there, Deiter? Is Ash a closet Germanophile? I, for one, don't get it. There were many more important chapters which could have been written about the era, yet Ash waxed poetic again and again in epistolic love for the former German chancellor Fatso Kohl, and for the wonders of German "unification." Ash essentially gives the farm away, so to speak, on where he stands for Continental affairs. Subtlety wasn't his objective in certain parts of the book. Shame, pity, and condemnation.

** Not enough British pride. Ash seems to fall into the common category amongst British intellectuals who demonstrate a fair degree of self-hatred and self-destructive animosity for their own heritage. I realize it's not his fault, necessarily, that his is a nation of former virulent colonials who imposed their bad-teethed, foul-breathed, slim-pickings-fooded British stodginess on millions of former Commonwealth subjects, and stealing their once-beautiful former cultures. Only it doesn't excuse the likes of even Bad Boy Ash from opting out of the British collective. Here's my take on it: he's not allowed to stop being British, and can only stop being "British" when we tell him so. I'd like to introduce a new discrimination, and poor Ash is going to take the brunt of my displeasure. It's time for him to sample a little bit of the persona non grata-like prejudice which he sagely attempts to deconstruct in his little red-white-and-black (whose colours are those, postscript?) chinwag there. Ash isn't permitted to be a free-thinking peacenik, IMHO. Why, you ask needlessly? Well, we know where his true allegiances lie. He's a German-lover.

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Bollocks! I'm recommending the book anyways, because it's got lots of fresh details in it. Historical discussion points which you can regale your spectacle-toting teetotalling thinking friends with, making yourself into the life of any shindig which describes itself as being "above the rabble's fray." Elitist bunch of mother-...

If you really, really, really want to get smart, read Ash's book, m'kay?

I'm even going to move onto more of his published works, because I'd really like to sink into the heart of a self-hating Brit.

Interesting, don't you think?

-- ADM in the Golden City, very very frustrated about the situation in the Levant. Watch what I do next.