Facts Are Subversive
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Political Writing from a Decade Without a Name
Timothy Garton Ash
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“The best and most perceptive political writer of our time . . . This book shines the clearest of lights on an entire decade.”—John Simpson
“One of the most reliable and acute observers of the past present, able to report on events as a witness and, simultaneously, assess them with a coolness of judgment that almost always holds up over time.”—George Packer, New York Times Book Review
“One of the most enjoyable political books you’ll read this year.”—GQ
Timothy Garton Ash is well known as an astute and penetrating observer of a dazzling array of subjects, not least through his many contributions to the New York Review of Books. This collection of his essays from the last decade reveals his knack for ferreting out exceptional insights into a troubled world, often on the basis of firsthand experience. Whether he is writing about how “liberalism” has become a dirty word in American political discourse, the problems of Muslim assimilation in Europe, Ukraine’s Orange Revolution, Günter Grass’s membership in the Waffen-SS, or the angry youth of Iran, Garton Ash combines a gimlet eye for detail with deep knowledge of the history of his chosen subjects.
Running through this book is the author’s insistence that, whatever some postmodernists might claim, there are indeed facts—and we have both a political and a moral duty to establish them. By practicing what it preaches, Facts Are Subversive shows why Timothy Garton Ash is one of the world’s leading political writers.
“One of the most reliable and acute observers of the past present, able to report on events as a witness and, simultaneously, assess them with a coolness of judgment that almost always holds up over time.”—George Packer, New York Times Book Review
“One of the most enjoyable political books you’ll read this year.”—GQ
Timothy Garton Ash is well known as an astute and penetrating observer of a dazzling array of subjects, not least through his many contributions to the New York Review of Books. This collection of his essays from the last decade reveals his knack for ferreting out exceptional insights into a troubled world, often on the basis of firsthand experience. Whether he is writing about how “liberalism” has become a dirty word in American political discourse, the problems of Muslim assimilation in Europe, Ukraine’s Orange Revolution, Günter Grass’s membership in the Waffen-SS, or the angry youth of Iran, Garton Ash combines a gimlet eye for detail with deep knowledge of the history of his chosen subjects.
Running through this book is the author’s insistence that, whatever some postmodernists might claim, there are indeed facts—and we have both a political and a moral duty to establish them. By practicing what it preaches, Facts Are Subversive shows why Timothy Garton Ash is one of the world’s leading political writers.
Timothy Garton Ash is professor of European studies at Oxford University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is the author of eight previous books, including The Magic Lantern, History of the Present, and The File, and is a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books.
"A gifted and knowledgeable writer. . . . His aim is to . . . address some of the defining issues of the era in which we live, and yet show how difficult it is, ultimately, to define this decade."—John Gray, New Statesman
"His powers of observation and analysis and his sense of history in the making, combined with a generous humor and a knack for epigrams and zingers, make his essays both a pleasure and a revelation to read. Taken together they are a magisterial comment on a decade of rising non-Western powers, global warming, the crisis of capitalism, apparent US decline, and the somnambulism of Europe."—Brian Urquhart, New York Review of Books
"It is immensely refreshing to read Timothy Garton Ash’s new collection of political essays. . . . Unusually for a chocolate box book of this kind, scarcely any of the 48 offerings disappoint. Garton Ash . . . writes with such unfailing skill and perception that it is worth pausing to ask: what makes Garton Ash so worthwhile a commentator? I think the answer is twofold: he is a historian, which allows him to set events in their proper perspective and fit them into the continuity of his subject. He is also a passionate European who genuinely admires America—an unusual combination, especially for a British commentator." —David Blair, Daily Telegraph
"Timothy Garton Ash is the best and most perceptive political writer of our time...This book shines the clearest of lights on an entire decade." —John Simpson
"The book is invaluable because of its author’s good sense and foresight. . . . This book does something more worthwhile: it evokes a time just past—provoking questions where answers do not yet exist."—Daniel Domby, Financial Times
“These essays aid in understanding dynamic and complex issues without dogma attached.”—Library Journal
"[Timothy Garton Ash] knows his history and literature, and he combines reportage with passionate political commitment.” —Foreign Affairs
"[Timothy Garton Ash’s] forte is the exceptionally well-informed, vivid account of the personal, cultural and geopolitical elements at work at a moment of political decision in a country most of his readers previously knew little about… His virtuosity is frequently on display in this collection.”—The Nation
"[Garton Ash] is a historian with the journalist’s urge to be there, and a journalist with the historian’s knowledge of where he is. These qualities have made him one of the most reliable and acute observers of the past present, able to report on events as a witness and, simultaneously, assess them with a coolness of judgment that almost always holds up over time."—George Packer, New York Times Book Review
ISBN: 9780300177558
Publication Date: August 2, 2011
Publication Date: August 2, 2011
464 pages, 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
1 b/w illus.
1 b/w illus.
Sales Restrictions: For sale in U.S. and Canada only
