Homelands

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

Homelands is a stunning blend of contemporary history, reportage and memoir by our greatest writer about European affairs.

Drawing on half a century of interviews and experience, Homelands tells the story of Europe in the later twentieth and early twenty-first centuries - how, having emerged from its wartime hell in 1945, 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.

Humane, expert and deeply felt, Homelands is full of encounters, conversations and anecdote. It is also highly personal: Timothy Garton Ash has spent a lifetime studying and thinking about Europe and this book is full of life itself, from his father's experience on D-Day, to his teenage French exchange, to interviewing Polish dockers, Albanian guerillas 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 singular history of a period of unprecedented progress and a clear-eyed account of how so much then went wrong, all the way from the financial crisis of 2008 to the war in Ukraine. It culminates in an urgent call to the citizens of this great old continent to understand and defend what we have collectively achieved.

©2023 Timothy Garton Ash (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Critics 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
Garton Ash does it brilliantly ... tremendously enjoyable ... thoughtful, honest, open, self-deprecating
Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times
A panoramic contemporary history of Europe, in which sharp political analysis is enlivened with personal memoir - drawn from decades of distinguished work as a journalist and academic
FT Summer Book of 2023
Readers could hardly wish for a wiser guide. Over 40 years, Garton Ash has both watched from the stands and played on the pitch in the arena of European change
Financial Times
Outstanding ... Homelands is an elegantly written piece of contemporary history by one of Britain's leading public intellectuals
Spectator
At once accessible, engaging and erudite, Homelands is an extraordinary accomplishment, much like the author's life; it is a heartfelt call to arms
Times Literary Supplement
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
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

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