The File: A Personal History - Hardcover

Garton Ash, Timothy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0002558238 ISBN 13: 9780002558235

Publisher: HarperCollins, 1997

Synopsis

‘An invaluable document for our time, bravely and beautifully written; a chilling portrait of treachery and compromise and an unsolved human riddle that will not let me go. For we who have never been members of a police state can never know how we would respond to its blackmail.’ JOHN LE CARRE

In 1991, after the Wall came down and the archives of Eastern Europe opened up, Timothy Garton Ash walked into the building that housed the files of the Stasi, the infamous East German secret police, and asked if there was a file on him. There was – a thick one.

The File is the story of what was in it, and the avenues – personal, political and historical – down which he was led by it.

It begins autobiographically, but quickly and brilliantly opens out, as Garton Ash tracks down and confronts those who once pursued and monitered him, to show how far all history is subjective, how it is impossible to establish the ‘Truth’ of History, and how the way we act depends overwhelmingly upon the circumstances in which we are placed.

The File is one of the most absorbing, original and unexpectedly moving non-fiction books of 1997.

About this title

Review:

Praise for Timothy Garton Ash:

The Polish Revolution (Winner, Somerset Maugham Prize, 1983)

‘A masterpiece.’
Times Literary Supplement.

We the People (1990)

‘It is with minimal exaggeration that I state that, in the future, there will probably be streets in warsaw, Prague and Budapest bearing the name of Timothy Garton Ash.’
Karel Kyncl, Independent.

‘He is our best informed and beadiest commentator on Europe – eloquent, sceptical, fearless, with a tinge of idealism so wary as to be acceptable.’
Craig Raine

Book Description:

Timothy Garton Ash lived behind the Berlin Wall and joined the millions spied on by the Stasi. In 1993, he gained access to his Stasi file. Here he tells his story, in a classic memoir of dictatorship and betrayal.

'A chilling portrait of treachery and compromise... bravely and beautifully written' John le Carré

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0002558238
• ISBN 13: 9780002558235
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240