Neal Ascherson
Neal Ascherson is the author of The Struggles for Poland, The Black Sea, and Stone Voices: The Search for Scotland. He is the editor of the journal Public Archaeology at University College London. (July 2009)
From the Review
July 16, 2009: London: A Pilgrim's Progress
The Road Home by Rose Tremain
November 6, 2008: In a London of Infinite Possibilities
Something to Tell You by Hanif Kureishi
November 8, 2007: Do They Crave War?
Echoes of Violence: Letters from a War Reporter by Carolin Emcke
Another Bloody Love Letter by Anthony Loyd
December 21, 2006: A Far-Flung Correspondent
Reporting: Writings from The New Yorker by David Remnick
June 22, 2006: The Writer and the Tyrant
You Must Set Forth at Dawn by Wole Soyinka
March 23, 2006: Ghosts
The Living Unknown Soldier: A Story of Grief and the Great War by Jean-Yves Le Naour, translated from the French by Penny Allen
Warriors: Portraits from the Battlefield by Max Hastings
April 7, 2005: The Breaking of the Mau Mau
Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya by Caroline Elkins
Histories of the Hanged: The Dirty War in Kenya and the End of Empire by David Anderson
October 21, 2004: Africa: The Hard Truth
A Continent for the Taking: The Tragedy and Hope of Africa by Howard W. French
April 29, 2004: Forbidden Knowledge
A Distant Shore by Caryl Phillips
November 20, 2003: In the Black Garden
Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War by Thomas de Waal
Armenia: Portraits of Survival and Hope by Donald E. Miller and Lorna Touryan Miller, with photographs by Jerry Berndt
April 10, 2003: Goodbye to Berlin
What I Saw: Reports from Berlin, 1920–1933 by Joseph Roth,translated from the German and with an introduction by Michael Hofmann
November 21, 2002: At War with Stupidity
When Eve Was Naked: Stories of a Life's Journey by Josef Skvorecky
April 11, 2002: Surviving for Art
The Author of Himself: The Life of Marcel Reich-Ranicki by Marcel Reich-Ranicki, translated from the German by Ewald Osers
June 21, 2001: In the Pit of History
The Shadow of the Sun Ryszard Kapuscinski, translated from the Polish by Klara Glowczewska
Looking for Lovedu: Days and Nights in Africa Ann Jones
March 29, 2001: The Remains of der Tag
Whitehall and the Jews 1933–1948: British Immigration Policyand the Holocaust Louise London
Farewell Leicester Square Betty Miller
June 29, 2000: Under Siege
Ladysmith by Giles Foden
December 2, 1999: A Cup of Coffee (letter)
May 20, 1999: Put Out More Flags
Anglomania: A European Love Affair by Ian Buruma
March 4, 1999: On the Edge of Catastrophe
Secrets by Nuruddin Farah
May 14, 1998: A Murder in South Africa
The House Gun by Nadine Gordimer
January 15, 1998: Lost
As If: A Crime, a Trial, a Question of Childhood by Blake Morrison
The Missing by Andrew O'Hagan
July 17, 1997: Ceremony of Innocence
Angela's Ashes: A Memoir by Frank McCourt
Goodbye to Catholic Ireland by Mary Kenny
November 28, 1996: The Man in the Otter Collar
Aleksander Wat: Life and Art of an Iconoclast by Tomas Venclova
June 11, 1992: Africa's Lost History
The African Experience: Major Themes in African History from Earliest Times to the Present by Roland Oliver
The Scramble for Africa: The White Man's Conquest of the Dark Continent from 1876 to 1912 by Thomas Pakenham
August 15, 1991: 'How to Leave a House of Slavery'
Solidarity, Solitude by Adam Zagajewski, translated by Lillian Vallee
Between East and West: Writings from 'Kultura' edited by Robert Kostrzewa
The Soccer War by Ryszard Kapuscinski, translated by William Brand
April 11, 1991: The Plight of Kosovo (letter)
April 26, 1990: The Trial of Lithuania
September 28, 1989: About the European House
Europe, Europe: Forays into a Continent by Hans Magnus Enzensberger, translated by Martin Chalmers
April 13, 1989: Crackdown in Prague (letter)
March 30, 1989: Inside the Whale
The Essential Gesture: Writing, Politics and Places by Nadine Gordimer, edited and with an introduction by Stephen Clingman
The Novels of Nadine Gordimer: History from the Inside by Stephen R. Clingman
September 29, 1988: A Polish Hero
The King of Children: A Biography of Janusz Korczak by Betty Jean Lifton
King Matt the First by Janusz Korczak, translated by Richard Lourie, introduction by Bruno Bettelheim
March 3, 1988: Betrayal
Anthills of the Savannah by Chinua Achebe
December 17, 1987: Polish Nightmares
Moonrise, Moonset by Tadeusz Konwicki, translated by Richard Lourie
The Color of Blood by Brian Moore
May 28, 1987: The Death Doctors
The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide by Robert Jay Lifton
Mengele: The Complete Story by Gerald L. Posner, by John Ware
Auschwitz: An Eyewitness Account of Mengele's Infamous Death Camp by Dr. Miklos Nyiszli, translated by Tibère Kremer, by Richard Seaver, with a foreword by Bruno Bettelheim
Letters from Westerbork by Etty Hillesum, introduction and notes by Jan G. Gaarlandt, translated by Arnold J. Pomerans
November 6, 1986: The Last Idol
Kitchener: The Man Behind the Legend by Philip Warner
The Kitchener Enigma by Trevor Royle
February 27, 1986: No Place for Them
The Unwanted: European Refugees in the Twentieth Century by Michael R. Marrus
July 18, 1985: The Fire This Time
Waiting: The Whites of South Africa by Vincent Crapanzano
Freedom Rising by James North
The True Confessions of an Albino Terrorist by Breyten Breytenbach
April 25, 1985: Children of the Cape
The Wall of the Plague: A Novel by André Brink
January 17, 1985: The Alchemist
The Periodic Table by Primo Levi, translated by Raymond Rosenthal
October 25, 1984: Living in the Night
Mouroir: Mirrornotes of a Novel by Breyten Breytenbach
July 19, 1984: In Hell
An Interrupted Life: The Diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941–1943 translated by Arno Pomerans, with an introduction by J.G. Gaarlandt
The Murders at Bullenhuser Damm: The SS Doctor and the Children by Günther Schwarberg, translated by Erna Baber Rosenfeld, by Alvin H. Rosenfeld
April 26, 1984: The Surprise of Solidarity
A Warsaw Diary, 1978–1981 by Kazimierz Brandys, translated by Richard Lourie
The First Polka by Horst Bienek, translated by Ralph R. Read
November 24, 1983: The 'Bildung' of Barbie
August 18, 1983: Fall of an Empire
The Emperor: Downfall of an Autocrat by Ryszard Kapuscinski, translated by William R. Brand, by Katarzyna Mroczkowska-Brand
September 23, 1982: That Old Czech Magic
The Questionnaire, or Prayer for a Town and a Friend by Jirí Grusa, translated by Peter Kussi
October 22, 1981: Unspeakable News
Auschwitz and the Allies by Martin Gilbert
The Terrible Secret: Suppression of the Truth about Hitler's "Final Solution" by Walter Laqueur
March 5, 1981: Growing Up Nazi
Ghost Waltz by Ingeborg Day
A Model Childhood by Christa Wolf
December 18, 1980: A Successful Martyr
Olive Schreiner by Ruth First, by Ann Scott
August 14, 1980: The Uprooted
Unsettling Europe by Jane Kramer
June 12, 1980: Survivors
The House on Prague Street by Hana Demetz
The Missing Years by Walter Laqueur
The Half Jew by Robert Beauvais, translated by Harold J. Salemson
The Lead Soldiers by Uri Orlev, translated by Hillel Halkin
No. 12 Kaiserhofstrasse by Valentin Senger, translated by Ralph Manheim
Of Blood and Hope by Samuel Pisar
March 6, 1980: Love and Revolution
Comrade and Lover: Rosa Luxemburg's Letters to Leo Jogiches edited and translated by Elzbieta Ettinger
December 20, 1979: The Bullet of Devolution (letter)
December 6, 1979: The War that Made South Africa
The Boer War by Thomas Pakenham
October 11, 1979: Upward to Defeat
Gladstone: A Progress in Politics by Peter Stansky
August 16, 1979: The Half-cracked Hero
The Road to Khartoum: A Life of General Charles Gordon by Charles Chenevix Trench
June 14, 1979: Heroes
Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed: The Story of the Village of Le Chambon and How Goodness Happened There by Philip P. Hallie
April 5, 1979: The Damned
Young Adolf by Beryl Bainbridge
The Confessions of Josef Baisz by Dan Jacobson
King of the Jews: A Novel of the Holocaust by Leslie Epstein
September 28, 1978: Boys Will Beat Boys
The Old School Tie: The Phenomenon of the English Public School by Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy
June 15, 1978: Are Ulstermen English? (letter)
May 4, 1978: The Morose Revolution
A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962 by Alistair Horne
March 9, 1978: Call for Chaos
The City Builder by George Konrád, translated by Ivan Sanders
May 12, 1977: The Age of Arsenic
Victorian Murderesses by Mary S. Hartman
April 28, 1977: News from the Workshop
History Workshop: A Journal of Socialist Historians Issues One and Two
December 9, 1976: Goodbye to All That
The Face of Battle by John Keegan
On the Psychology of Military Incompetence by Norman F. Dixon
The Social History of the Machine Gun by John Ellis
September 30, 1976: Battle over Monty
Montgomery of Alamein by Alun Chalfont
July 15, 1976: South Africa's White War
The Great Anglo-Boer War by Byron Farwell
May 27, 1976: Graves Everywhere
A Dreambook for Our Time by Tadeusz Konwicki, translated by David Walsh, with an introduction by Leszek Kolakowski
This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen by Tadeusz Borowski, selected and translated by Barbara Vedder, with an introduction by Jan Kott
March 18, 1976: The Homecoming
Spandau: The Secret Diaries by Albert Speer, translated by Richard Winston, by Clara Winston
February 5, 1976: Room at the Bottom
A Seventh Man: Migrant Workers in Europe text by John Berger, photographs by Jean Mohr
Immigrant Workers and Class Structure in Western Europe by Stephen Castles, by Godula Kosack
January 22, 1976: The Good War
The Second World War: An Illustrated History by A.J.P. Taylor
WW II: A Chronicle of Soldiering by James Jones, by Art Weithas
September 18, 1975: Taping Friday
Longing for Darkness: Kamante's Tales From Out of Africa collected by Peter Beard
March 20, 1975: Liberation in Lisbon
The Three Marias: New Portuguese Letters by Maria Isabel Barreno, by Maria Teresa Horta, by Maria Velho da Costa, translated by Helen R. Lane
August 8, 1974: People in a Trap
Life Is Elsewhere by Milan Kundera, translated by Peter Kussi
Laughable Loves by Milan Kundera, translated by Suzanne Rappaport, with an introduction by Philip Roth
Good Men Still Live! by Alan Levy
The Case Worker by George Konrád, translated by Paul Aston
April 18, 1974: Triumph of the Will
Hitler by Joachim C. Fest, translated by Richard Winston, by Clara Winston
Hitler: Legend, Myth and Reality by Werner Maser, translated by Peter Ross, by Betty Ross
Hitler's War Aims: The Establishment of the New Order by Norman Rich
The Evolution of Hitler's Germany: The Ideology, the Personality, the Moment by Horst von Maltitz
Hitler Close-Up by Heinrich Hoffman, by Henry Picker, compiled by Jochen von Lang, translated by Nicholas Fry
Sieg Heil! An Illustrated History of Germany from Bismarck to Hitler by Stefan Lorant
February 21, 1974: Mission Impossible
Livingstone by Tim Jeal
November 1, 1973: Slug of Redemption
From the Diary of a Snail by Günter Grass
June 14, 1973: Intolerable Memories
Judenrat by Isaiah Trunk
Hunter and Hunted: Human History of the Holocaust selected and edited by Gerd Korman
October '43 by Aage Bertelsen, translated by Milly Lindholm
The Destiny of Europe's Gypsies by Donald Kenrick, by Grattan Puxon
April 19, 1973: The Man Who Came in from the Cold (letter)
April 5, 1973: After the Czech "New Wave"
All the Bright Young Men and Women: A Personal History of the Czech Cinema by Josef Skvorecky
Political Grouping in the Czechoslovak Reform Movement by Vladimir V. Kusin
Reform Rule in Czechoslovakia: The Dubcek Era 1968-1969 by Galia Golan
March 8, 1973: East Germany Lives
Honecker and the New Politics of Europe by Heinz Lippmann, translated by Helen Sebba
The Changing Party Elite in East Germany by Peter C. Ludz
Behind the Berlin Wall by Steven Kelman
November 30, 1972: The Outlaw
Land Without Justice by Milovan Djilas, translated by Michael D. Petrovich
The Stone and the Violets by Milovan Djilas, translated by Lovett F. Edwards
Contemporary Yugoslav Literature by Sveta Lukić
August 10, 1972: After the Earthquake
Die Meerschweinchen (The Guinea Pigs) by Ludvík Vaculík
Das Beil (The Axe) by Ludvík Vaculík
The Politics of Culture by Antonín J. Liehm
The Czechoslovak Reform Movement by Galia Golan
The Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia: Its Effects on Eastern Europe edited by E. Czerwinski, edited by J. Piekalkiewicz
June 1, 1972: Our Man in Pullach
The Service: The Memoirs of General Reinhard Gehlen translated by David Irving
The General Was a Spy by Heinz Höhne, by Hermann Zolling, translated by Richard Barry
Gehlen, Spy of the Century by E.H. Cookridge
April 20, 1972: Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik: What's at Stake
Germany's Ostpolitik by Lawrence L. Whetten
Germany in Our Time by Alfred Grosser
Britain and West Germany: Changing Societies and the Future of Foreign Policy edited by Karl Kaiser, edited by Roger Morgan
The Warsaw Pact: Case Studies in Communist Conflict Resolution by Robin Alison Remington
The Berlin Crisis: 1958-1962 by Jack M. Schick
Steinstücken. A Study in Cold War Politics by H.M. Catudal Jr.
November 4, 1971: A Modern Instance
The Affair of Gabrielle Russier with a Preface by Raymond Jean, an Introduction by Mavis Gallant
November 4, 1971: Idealism & Power (letter)
September 2, 1971: Rebirth and Death in Czechoslovakia
Dubcek by William Shawcross
The Czechoslovak Experiment 1968-1969 by Ivan Sviták
Prague Notebook: The Strangled Revolution by Michel Salomon, translated by Helen Eustis
A Year Is Eight Months: Czechoslovakia 1968 Journalist M.
Czechoslovakia Since World War II by Tad Szulc
Journal d'un contre-révolutionnaire (to be published in November by McGraw-Hill as Diary of a Counter Revolutionary, translated by Ruth Willard (256 pp., $6.95)) by Pavel Kohout
The Confession by Artur London, translated by Alastair Hamilton
Stalinism in Prague: The Loebl Story by Eugen Loebl, translated by Maurice Michael
The Czechoslovak Political Trials, 1950-1954: The Suppressed Report of the Dubcek Government's Commission of Inquiry, 1968 edited by Jirí Pelikán
July 1, 1971: Poland After the Uprising
April 8, 1971: Down There on a Visit
The Red and the White: Report from a French Village by Edgar Morin, translated by A.M. Sheridan-Smith
The Other Germans: Report from an East German Town by Hans Axel Holm, translated by Thomas Teal
Ich bin Bürger der DDR und lebe in der Bundesrepublik by Barbara Grunert-Bronnen
After Hitler: A Report on Today's West Germans by Jürgen Neven-Du Mont, translated by Ralph Manheim
November 19, 1970: Heretics
The Cowards by Josef Skvorecký, translated by Jeanne Nemcová
Joseph by Mervyn Jones
Little Peter in War and Peace by Gerhard Zwerenz, translated by William Whitman
The Public Prosecutor by Georgi Dzhagarov, adapted from the Bulgarian by C.P. Snow, by Pamela Hansford Johnson, Introduction by C.P. Snow
August 13, 1970: Communist Dropouts
The Search for a Third Way by Heinz Brandt, with a Foreword by Erich Fromm
Our Own People by Elisabeth K. Poretsky
Men in Prison by Victor Serge
April 23, 1970: Lenin Year
Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984? by Andrei Amalrik
The New Russian Tragedy by Anatole Shub
The Demonstration in Pushkin Square by Pavel Litvinov
Message From Moscow An Observer
My Testimony by Anatoly Marchenko
Russia: Hopes And Fears by Alexander Werth
War Between Russia and China by Harrison E. Salisbury
The Masaryk Case by Claire Sterling
Report On My Husband by Josefa Slánská
November 20, 1969: Raw Nerves
Speak Out! by Günter Grass, translated by Ralph Manheim
Emergency Exit by Ignazio Silone, translated by Harvey Fergusson II
June 19, 1969: The Rise and Fall of the Czech Rebellion
The Seventh Night by Ladislav Mnacko
The Czech Black Book Sciences compiled by the Historical Section of the Czechoslovak Academy of, edited by Robert Littell
The Voices by Joseph Wechsberg
Prague's Two Hundred Days by Harry Schwartz
Prague Spring: A Report on Czechoslovakia 1968 by Z.A.B. Zeman
Plan and Market Under Socialism by Ota Sik
May 8, 1969: Under Eastern Eyes
Native Realm by Czeslaw Milosz
Seesaw: Cultural Life in Eastern Europe by Yorick Blumenfeld
Polish Writing Today edited by Celina Wieniawska
New Writing of East Europe edited by George Gömöri, edited by Charles Newman
Poland, Eagle in the East by William Woods
Soviet-East European Dialogue: International Relations of a New Type? by Nish Jamgotch Jr.
January 2, 1969: Survivors
Living and Partly Living by Jiri Mucha
Legends of Our Time by Elie Wiesel
Z by Vassilis Vassilikos
August 22, 1968: Breakdown (letter)
August 1, 1968: High on Guilt
Aden, Arabie by Paul Nizan, with a Foreword by Jean-Paul Sartre, translated by Joan Pinkham
Confessions of a Disloyal European by Jan Myrdal
February 1, 1968: Unmodern Men
Society and Democracy in Germany by Ralf Dahrendorf
Between Eagle and Swastika: German Nationalism Since 1945 by Kurt P. Tauber
November 9, 1967: Poisoned Cities
Birth of Our Power by Victor Serge, translated by Richard Greeman
The Third Book about Achim by Uwe Johnson
Night Falls on the City by Sarah Gainham
September 14, 1967: Ghosts
Journey Through a Haunted Land: The New Germany by Amos Elon
June 1, 1967: Chronicles of the Holocaust
Treblinka by Jean-François Steiner, Preface by Simone de Beauvoir
The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski
They Fought Back: The Story of the Jewish Resistance in Nazi Europe edited and translated by Yuri Suhl
Resistance Against Tyranny edited by Eugene Heimler
The Murderers Among Us: The Wiesenthal Memoirs by Simon Wiesenthal, edited by Joseph Wechsberg
March 9, 1967: "Progress, Not Politics"
The Muted Revolution: East Germany's Challenge to Russia and the West by Welles Hangen
October 6, 1966: Intoxicated With War
Heroes' Twilight: A Study of the Literature of the Great War by Bernard Bergonzi
Men Who March Away: Poems of the First World War edited by I.M. Parsons
The Long Trail: What the British Soldier Sang and Said in 1914-18 by John Brophy, by Eric Partridge
A Passionate Prodigality by Guy Chapman
July 7, 1966: Senior Citizens
Wohin treibt die Bundesrepublik? by Karl Jaspers
Memoirs 1945-53 by Konrad Adenauer
May 12, 1966: Master Spy
The Case of Richard Sorge by F.W. Deakin, by G.R. Storry
March 31, 1966: Whose Germany?
The Unloved Germans by Hermann Eich
The Grand Design: A European Solution to German Reunification by Franz-Josef Strauss
Germany Between East and West: The Reunification Problem by Frederick H. Hartmann
June 3, 1965: Ataturk
Ataturk: A Biography of Mustafa Kemal, Father of Modern Turkey by Lord Kinross
May 20, 1965: The Lion of Judah
Haile Selassie: The Conquering Lion by Leonard Mosley
April 8, 1965: After the Final Solution
The House of Ashes by Oscar Pinkus
The Holocaust Kingdom by Alexander Donat
December 31, 1964: The House of Napoleon
The Golden Bees: The Story of the Bonapartes by Theo Aronson
Napoleon and Josephine by Frances Mossiker
The Empress Eugenie by Harold Kurtz
October 8, 1964: His Watery Beer
Rupert Brooke by Christopher Hassall
June 11, 1964: King Tum
King Edward the Seventh by Sir Philip Magnus
May 14, 1964: The Playing Fields
Gentlemanly Power: British Leadership and the Public School System by Robert Wilkinson
February 6, 1964: T. E. Lawrence
T. E. Lawrence to His Biographers by Robert Graves, by B.H. Liddell Hart
338171, T.E. Lawrence of Abrabia by Victoria Ocampo, translated by David Garnett
December 26, 1963: The Fate of the Union: Kennedy and After
December 12, 1963: The Queen of Hearts
Queen Victoria's Early Letters edited by John Raymond
Books by Neal Ascherson
Stone Voices: The Search for Scotland (2003)
The King Incorporated: Leopold the Second and the Congo (2001)
Black Sea (1995)
Local Government and the Myth of Sovereignty (1994)
Games with Shadows (1988)
The Struggles for Poland (1987)
The Polish August: The Self-Limiting Revolution (1982)