false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1174090631m/360985.jpg 893641 4 In the 1980s, Timothy Garton Ash was a respected Central Europe reporter, his books <I>The Magic Lantern</I>, <I>The Uses of Adversity</I>, and <I>The Polish Revolution</I> required reading on the area, still very much a specialized field. In the 1990s, Europe's supposed margins forced their way center stage, and everyone wants to know--<I>needs</I> to know--about Lech Walesa's fall from power in Poland, why Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia crumbled into pieces, about Bosnia and Kosovo, where Russia is going. These are the stories that fill our front pages at the turn of the millennium, and dominate discussions in Brussels and beyond.<p> <I>History of the Present</I> is a series of 29 essays, sketches, and dispatches filed during the 1990s, its title coined by George Kennan in an attempt to capture the uniqueness of Garton Ash's work--journalistically contemporary and yet with a sense of historical perspective usually found only with that handily sure-footed guide, hindsight. Some of the pieces are now "outdated" in a narrow news sense, but all the more valuable for that--history-with-hindsight will inevitably iron out all the telling creases that Garton Ash records. What he produces is, in his own word, a "kaleidoscope" that eludes crass summary, but even so, he concludes with some wise words on what Europe might now mean at the end of the decade. We should all read this book. <I>--Alan Stewart, Amazon.co.uk</I> 878865 1999 History of the Present: Essays, Sketches, and Dispatches from Europe in the 1990s total:20|5:7|4:9|3:4|2:0|1:0| 20 83 37 3 5 0 false false Tue May 05 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri May 01 20:33:01 -0700 2009 Tue May 05 22:04:01 -0700 2009 New York Review of Books when they were originally published. See...more...]]> 0 0 false false Tue May 05 15:51:29 -0700 2009 Tue May 05 20:14:30 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Fri May 09 21:01:37 -0700 2008 Fri May 09 21:02:50 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Sep 28 21:09:05 -0700 2009 Tue Aug 18 13:31:48 -0700 2009 Mon Sep 28 21:09:05 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Tue Jun 23 12:19:38 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 23 12:20:12 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Sat Jun 13 07:36:41 -0700 2009 Sat Jun 13 07:36:41 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Wed Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Apr 27 09:23:44 -0700 2009 Tue Oct 27 05:28:18 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sat Mar 07 07:33:39 -0800 2009 Sat Mar 07 07:33:39 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Mon Feb 16 19:14:33 -0800 2009 Mon Feb 16 19:14:33 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Sun Jan 25 13:46:44 -0800 2009 Sun Jan 25 13:46:47 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Thu Jan 15 07:40:05 -0800 2009 Thu Jan 15 07:40:05 -0800 2009 3 0 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2002 Mon Jan 05 13:22:05 -0800 2009 Mon Jan 05 13:22:16 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Tue Dec 23 12:32:28 -0800 2008 Tue Dec 23 12:32:34 -0800 2008 3 0 false false Wed Dec 03 11:05:59 -0800 2008 Wed Dec 03 11:05:59 -0800 2008 0 0 false false Sat Nov 29 05:27:13 -0800 2008 Sat Nov 29 05:27:18 -0800 2008 3 0 false false Tue Oct 14 06:38:27 -0700 2008 Tue Oct 14 06:38:27 -0700 2008 0 0 false false Fri Oct 10 08:05:46 -0700 2008 Fri Oct 10 08:05:50 -0700 2008 0 0 false false Wed Aug 06 00:48:07 -0700 2008 Wed Aug 06 00:48:07 -0700 2008 0 0 false false Fri Jul 04 05:38:07 -0700 2008 Fri Jul 04 05:38:07 -0700 2008 5 0 false false Wed Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2004 Mon Jun 16 11:43:25 -0700 2008 Mon Jun 16 11:43:39 -0700 2008 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=360985