Review: Europe in the Present Tense

Reviewed Work(s):
History of the Present: Essays, Sketches, and Dispatches from Europe in the 1990s by Timothy
Garton Ash
Raymond Tanter

International Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 3. (Autumn, 2001), pp. 193-197.

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 Europe in the Present Tense

History of the Present: Essays, Sketches, and Dispatches from Europe in the
1990s, Timothy Garton Ash (New York: Random House, 1999). 405 pp., cloth
(ISBN: 0-375-50353-6), $29.95.

I
n History of the Present, Timothy Garton Ash provides a panoramic view of
the end of the Cold War and the transformation of Europe from the former
East-West order to a new order of emerging democracies and a disorder of
tribal rivalries. In his introduction, Ash invites the reader to accompany him on
a virtual travelogue and intellectual journey through the 1990s that emphasizes
falling walls and disintegrating empires more than the new Europe of global
trade and large financial transactions.
The engaging title comes from George Kennan's review of another of Ash's
books, The Uses ofAdversity, in which Kennan coins "history of the present" to
describe that book's approach. Ash writes at the intersection of journalism,
history, and literature. Such a three-cornered approach might be a lonely place-
like an "empty set" in mathematics, where three circles overlap but there are no
elements in common. As a fellow of St. Antony's College, Oxford, and the
Hoover Institution in Stanford, California, Ash fills at least two of the three
corners because he is both an academic and a journalist.
Ash presents his current history of Europe as a collection of twenty-nine
personal narratives, which are linked by annotated chronologies that highlight
significant events. These include East Germany and German elections in March
1990; the cascade of reform in Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia in July
1990; German reunification in October 1990; events surrounding Croatia, Bos-
nia, and Europe in 1995; Macedonia in May 1999; Kosovo in July 1999; and
Kosovo and Serbia in December 1999.
But Ash also places the current scene in a historical perspective. He imag-
ines a Swiss observer who has gone to sleep after the Congress of Berlin, which
assigned Bosnia-Herzegovina to Austria-Hungary in 1878. The observer would
be surprised to find what appears to be an institutionalization of the Congress of
Berlin in the five-nation Contact Group that met periodically to manage con-
flict over Bosnia: Britain, France, Germany, and Russia are the same great
powers that presided in Berlin in 1878. Missing is Austria-Hungary, and in its
place is the United States (pp. 164-165).

@ 2001 International Studies Association

Published by Blackwell Publishers, 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA, and 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1IF, UK
194 Raymond Tanter

In a literary vein, Ash makes spatial comparisons to animate his points for
the reader. He compares Europe before 1989 to the divisions of an American
city, such as New York. There are prosperous, relatively peaceful neighbor-
hoods in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, which contrast sharply with other
city areas with more violence and less wealth. Similarly, Europe was divided
between the prosperous West and the poorer East during the Cold War.
While Ash minimizes biases, he does not hesitate to impart his own inter-
pretation of events. He directs the reader's attention by including and excluding
detailed discussion of certain events. Ash sometimes functions more as an edi-
tor and less as a reporter. Whereas German and European unification and sys-
temic collapse in the former Soviet bloc receive only a few chapters, conflict in
Yugoslavia captures nearly the entire second half of the book. Consequently,
this review discusses the themes underlying Yugoslavian disintegration in detail.
Although Ash marries history and journalism well, he has more difficulty
linking politics with history. There is something problematic about writing con-
temporary political history. Authors sometimes paint accounts of current events
colored by political whims-such biases acting like deadly arsenic to accurate
storytelling. Embedding a political agenda into friendly recesses of history is a
way to sanctify that program through eternity.
One bias of Ash is his preference for stability, which sometimes makes his
cause-and-effect reasoning cry out for more evidence than he produces. He
notes that homogenous countries often are more stable than heterogeneous
nations. Ignoring factors like income, geography, and prior history, Ash then
infers too strongly that homogeneity is the key to political stability. Hence, he
takes a cynical view about the prospects for long-term stability of multiethnic
states like Bosnia.
A significantly less cynical view would question the contemporary histori-
an's ability to capture a reasonably objective perspective in immediately record-
ing and recounting important events. At issue is how an author can know the
forest while standing amid the branches and fallen leaves. Any consideration of
the future impact of current events rarely amounts to anything more than chro-
nology and prognostication. Conjecture is hardly the currency of exchange among
history departments of the academy.
Although Ash introduces chapters with journalistic chronologies, he is no
mere chronicler of events who enters a war zone only to vacate it after filing an
event-filled story; he is a participant-observer historian who often lives with
those about whom he writes. Ash asks the reader to imagine a theater critic
suddenly hauled up from the stalls in a play he or she is to review (p. 103).
What should the critic do? Write the review without mentioning the critic's own
part or bring in all relevant protagonists, reviewer included? Ash answers this
pointed query by detailing his own role without becoming autobiographical.
Few writers other than Ash could so eloquently translate the continental
consequences of a misdialed phone call. As an entrCe into an account of changes
 Reviews 195

that cascaded through Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia in July 1990, Ash
describes an attempt to phone Poland's new minister for labor and social affairs
and former oppositionist Jacek Kuron. Having missed the minister's office by
one digit, Ash conversed with a receptionist in the now docile censor's office:

"I thought censorship had been abolished?"

"Yes it has, but our contracts run until the end of July, so we're still here."

"Well, I wish you pleasant inactivity" (Ash, p. 21).

Ash likes to pose a series of interconnecting puzzles, ironies, dilemmas, and

paradoxes that force the reader to work with him to determine solutions. He
mentions the paradox of how forces of globalization and tribalization occur in
proximate spatial and temporal zones. In this regard, he views the problems of
Europe as conflicts between two opposing vectors: (1) globalization of finan-
cial transactions that facilitate economic integration and political democracy,
and (2) tribalization and ethnic rivalries that lead to disintegration.
Along with globalization, there is the liberal concept of citizenship-a civic
notion that is the foundation of an open society. The European Union (EU) of
industrialized democracies reflects the move to a global order. The Balkans-
comprised of warring factions in Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, and perhaps
Montenegro-highlight tribal forces of disorder. These ethnic concepts result
in closed societies.
Yugoslavia is a poster child for both the ethnic and civic concepts of citi-
zenship during the 1990s. When Slobodan MiloSeviC initiated wars against Slo-
venia, Croatia, and Bosnia and then a crackdown against ethnic Albanian Serbs
in Kosovo, the civic concept lost while Yugoslavia disintegrated. With the assis-
tance of global institutions, such as the United Nations, NATO, and the EU,
MiloSeviC fell from power, and the civic concept now prevails with the advent
of the new millennium.
As a part of his treatment of ethnic rivalry, Ash also discusses the influence
of religion on Balkan conflicts. Animosity among Bosnian Serb Orthodox Chris-
tians, Roman Catholics, and Muslims runs deep. During the 1990s, Bosnian
Serbs who are Orthodox Christians desecrated Catholic churches and mosques.
There is a line in a Serbian ballad that extols the virtues of forced conversion of
Muslims to Orthodox Christianity: "0 beautiful Turkish daughter, our monks
will soon baptize you."
Ash is critical of those who place too much stress on the divisive import of
religion in Balkan conflicts. He recognizes that the Iron Curtain was the divid-
ing line in Europe between communist dictatorships and capitalist democra-
cies. The fault line changed from the Cold War to the post-Cold War period.
But the notion that there is a comparable new fault line that separates Western
Christians from Orthodox Christians and Muslims is a stretch.
196 Raymond Tanter

Ash also criticizes the idea that the Balkan region is "Balkanized along
religious lines." It is true that during the Cold War Greece and Turkey were in
NATO, Bulgaria and Romania were in the Warsaw Pact, Yugoslavia was non-
aligned, and Albania was an isolated associate of China. But such Cold War
alignments have not given way to civilizational ones rooted in Islam and Ortho-
doxy, even though some Balkan leaders talk of crystallizing a Greek-Serb-
Bulgarian Orthodox alliance.
Ash belongs more to the globalization civic concept school of thought, with
authors like Noel Malcolm, than to the ancient hatreds school. He envisages a
role for outside forces to provide security for opposing parties as they develop
common economic and political bonds. Conversely, the ancient hatreds school,
with authors like Robert Kaplan, presumes that outside forces would need too
much time to achieve even a transitory, Pyrrhic victory. External military forces
can compel regional parties only in the short term. Ethnic animosities prevent
conflict resolution, and only the passage of time, when ethnic differences fade,
allows for a settlement.
Ash is critical of the ancient hatreds school, which dominated the foreign
ministries in the Western capitals during the 1990s. American and European
diplomats misunderstood Bosnia's past. They assumed that ancient ethnic hatreds
were the underlying causes of conflict in Bosnia during the 1990s. But, in fact,
ethnic groups in Yugoslavia had lived together peacefully in the past. Advo-
cates of the ancient hatreds argument counter that this peaceful coexistence was
possible only because of the domination of the Serbian royal house or the Com-
munist Party under Tito. Yet, despite ancient enmity, there was a period of
relative peace. Because they misread history, Western diplomats saw the con-
flict in Bosnia resulting from ethnic tensions rather than from manipulation and
the lust of power of leaders like MiloSeviC.
Initially focused on Slovenia and Croatia, MiloSeviC-led hostilities in the
Balkans shifted to Bosnia. Two questions emerge from the conflicts: Were hos-
tilities in Bosnia a civil war among ethnic groups claiming competing rights to
self-determination? Or were the hostilities wars of Serbian aggression against
independent states like Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia? Western countries
answered these questions differently. Although Ash does not directly ask the
questions himself, it seems that he would agree that conflicts were wars of
Serbian aggression against newly independent states.
Those who supported the territorial integrity of the whole of Yugoslavia or
preferred a loose confederation under Serbian domination initially called the
hostilities a civil war. Those who favored political independence for the repub-
lics and opposed the concept of a Greater Serbia described the fighting as an
international war. Led by Britain, which during the early 1990s tilted toward
Serbia, the first camp used the term "civil war." Less than a decade later, Brit-
ain began to oppose Serbia. Led by Germany, which leaned toward Slovenia
and Croatia, the second camp employed the term "international war." Again,
 Reviews 197

Ash appears to be on side of those who opposed the concept of a Greater

Serbia, as well as that of a Greater Albania.
At issue with a Greater Albania is how well Ash's ideas travel. Ash proffers
the standard NATO justification for intervention in Kosovo. Violence in Kos-
ovo between ethnic Albanians and Serbs could spread to the large Albanian
minority in Macedonia. This minority would seek independence and tear the
former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) apart while involving Bul-
garia and NATO ally Greece, which also has a province called Macedonia. Ash
argues convincingly that even without violence in Kosovo it is likely that eth-
nic Albanians will seek independence from FYROM.
Given the recent fighting over Macedonia after publication of History of the
Present, Ash's reasoning appears to be valid, and based on this validity, I highly
recommend the book.

Noel Malcolm, Bosnia: A Short History (New York: New York University Press,
1994).
Robert Kaplan, Balkan Ghosts: A Journey through History (New York: Vintage
Books, 1993).
-Raymond Tanter
University of Michigan