Description

‘A moving love letter to Europe’ Lea Ypi, author of Free

Homelands is a stunning blend of contemporary history, reporting and memoir by our greatest writer about Europe.

Drawing on half a century of travel and thinking, Homelands tells the story of Europe since its emergence from wartime hell in 1945: how 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.

Timothy Garton Ash has spent a lifetime studying Europe. Highly personal and deeply felt, this book is also full of vivid experiences, encounters and anecdotes: from his father’s memories of D-Day to interviewing Polish dockers, Albanian guerrillas in the mountains of Kosovo, and angry teenagers in the poorest quarters of Paris, as well as advising prime ministers, chancellors and presidents in the UK, Europe and the US.

Homelands is both a living, breathing history of a period of unprecedented progress and a clear-eyed account of how so much then went wrong, from the financial crisis of 2008 to the war in Ukraine. At its heart, this book is an urgent call to the citizens of this great old continent to understand and defend what we have collectively achieved.

Publisher Review

A moving love letter to Europe, Homelands merges memoir, political analysis and social criticism to reflect on the future of a continent still haunted by its past * Lea Ypi, author of Free * The right book for Europe, at the right time ... the perfect book for the present * Timothy Snyder, author of On Tyranny * We know there are Germans, Italians, Spaniards and Poles - but are there Europeans? Yes, at least one: Timothy Garton Ash. Homelands is the brilliant, captivating story of how he became one. * Mark Lilla, author of The Once and Future Liberal * This book, from a man who had a front-row seat to much of the history he describes, draws on his experiences and those of his friends to bring events to vivid life * M. E. Sarotte, author of Not One Inch * Garton Ash deftly combines scholarship, journalistic experience, and personal observations and stories in Homelands ... delightful and thought-provoking * Robert B. Zoellick, author of America in the World * Garton Ash has carved out a unique niche as a 'historian of the present.' Homelands combines his eye-witness account of Europe's evolution with his keen historical insight to offer an innovative and compelling book * Charles A. Kupchan, author of Isolationism * Timothy Garton Ash tells the epic story of ... [postwar] Europe * Irish Times, *Books to look forward to in 2023* * Personal memories matter in Europe, where the remembrance of recent horrors has shaped modern politics ... Homelands is a trip down memory lane on a continental scale ... insightful [and] downright chilling, too * Economist *