Timothy Garton Ash: From Post-War Europe to Post-Wall Europe – and Back

In his new book Homelands: A Personal History of Europe, Timothy Garton Ash gives a unique account of the history of Europe since 1945. This is history illustrated by memoir and reportage. Garton Ash draws on his extensive personal notes from 50 years of events witnessed, places visited and history makers encountered (from Margaret Thatcher to Vladimir Putin) to chart the rise and then faltering of the quest for a ‘Europe whole and free’.

In this lecture, Professor Garton Ash will extend the analysis in Homelands to offer an interpretation of how Europe progressed from the post-War period (famously analysed by Tony Judt) to what he calls the post-Wall period. And why it then regressed, in a ‘downward turn’ after 2008, culminating in Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 – beginning the largest war in Europe since 1945. What did Europe get right? Where did it go wrong? Why?

This event is hosted by the SPPGA, UBC’s Department of Political Science, History, and Anthropology.