Facts Are Subversive : Political Writing from a Decade Without a Name

by Garton Ash, Timothy

• ISBN13: 9780300161175
• ISBN10: 0300161174
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-10-19
• Publisher: Yale University Press

Summary

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 theNew 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, Gunter 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 Subversiveshows why Timothy Garton Ash is one of the world's leading political writers.

Author Biography

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.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. xiii
Velvet Revolutions, continued...
The Strange Toppling of Slobodan Milo¿evic	p. 3
'The country summoned me'	p. 26
Orange Revolution in Ukraine	p. 31
The Revolution That Wasn't	p. 46
1968 and 1989	p. 50
1989!	p. 55
Velvet Revolution in Past and Future	p. 67
Europe and Other Headaches
Ghosts in the Machine	p. 83
Are There Moral Foundations of European Power?	p. 87
The Twins' New Poland	p. 105
Exchange of Empires	p. 120
Why Britain is in Europe	p. 124
Europe's New Story	p. 141
National Anthems	p. 152
'O Chink, where is thy Wall?'	p. 157
The Perfect EU Member	p. 161
Islam, Terror and Freedom
La Alhambra	p. 167
Islam in Europe	p. 171
The Invisible Front Line	p. 188
Against Taboos	p. 192
Respect?	p. 196
Secularism or Atheism?	p. 200
No Ifs and No Buts	p. 204
USA! USA!
Mr President	p. 209
9/11	p. 216
Anti-Europeanism in America	p. 221
In Defence of the Fence	p. 235
Zorba the Bush	p. 240
Warsaw, Missouri	p. 244
Dancing with History	p. 248
Liberalism	p. 252
Beyond the West
Beauty and the Beast in Burma	p. 259
Soldiers of the Hidden Imam	p. 278
East Meets West	p. 295
The Brotherhood against Pharaoh	p. 299
Cities of No God	p. 303
Beyond Race	p. 307
Writers and Facts
The Brown Grass of Memory	p. 313
The Stasi on Our Minds	p. 326
Orwell in Our Time	p. 340
Orwell's List	p. 354
Is 'British Intellectual' an Oxymoron?	p. 372
'Ich bin ein Berliner'	p. 376
The Literature of Fact	p. 389
Envoi
Elephant, Feet of Clay	p. 403
Decivilization	p. 407
The Mice in the Organ	p. 411
Notes	p. 415
Acknowledgements	p. 427
Index	p. 429
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