Games with Shadows

by Neal Ascherson

Beautifully written, intelligent and provocative reflections on the world scene as Ascherson looks first at the painful business of being British in a period of decline marked by public nastiness and private confusion. He goes on to attack - in an important and original series of arguments -the politics of 'Stonehenge': the UK's archaic and undemocratic constitution, and finally examines the temptations of state power in Mrs Thatcher's decade.

Next, Ascherson takes us on a personal tour of Europe, 'the barbaric continent', exposing some ugly hatred and memories lurking beneath the cultured surface; he writes movingly about the courage and sacrifice that nations at their best can draw out. His meditations on Eastern Europe, 'Waltzing With Molotov', are exemplary for their critical sympathy.

In the book's final section, a vivid and memorable collection of sectarians, spies, traitors, heroes, monsters and victims reveals a lot about fear and hope in the closing years of this dangerous century.

354 pages, Hardcover

First published March 17, 1989

About the author

Charles Neal Ascherson (b. 1932) is a Scottish journalist and writer.

He was born in Edinburgh and educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge, where he read history and graduated with a triple starred first. He was described by the historian Eric Hobsbawm as "perhaps the most brilliant student I ever had. I didn't really teach him much, I just let him get on with it."

Ascherson's books include The King Incorporated: Leopold II (1963), The Polish August (1982), The Struggles for Poland (1987), Games with Shadows (1989), Black Sea (1996), Stone Voices (2002), and The Death of the Fronsac (2017).

He was the cental and eastern Europe correspondent for The Observer for many years. He also covered southern and central Africa for The Observer and The Scotsman from 1969 - 1989 and was the politics correspondent for The Scotsman from 1975 - 1979.

In the aftemath of Scotland's first devolution referendum in 1979, Ascherson was one of the editors of The Bulletin of Scottish Politics (1980-81). From 1998 until 2008, he was editor of Public Archaeology, a journal from the Institute of Archaeology at UCL, as well as a columnist for The Observer and Independent on Sunday 1985 - 2008.

He lives in London and Argyll.