Neal Ascherson is a journalist and writer. For many years he was foreign correspondent and then columnist for the (London) Observer. Among his books are The King Incorporated: Leopold the Second and the Congo (1963; Granta, 1999); The Struggles for Poland (Random House, 1988); Black Sea (Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 1996); and Stone Voices: The Search for Scotland (Granta, 2003)
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Published in: openDemocracyUKAncient Britons and the Republican dreamNeal Ascherson's lecture from 1985 feels more relevant than ever.
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Published in: openDemocracyUKIs Britishness a generous thing, or has it damaged England?The Daily Telegraph's Peter Oborne and Scottish writer Neal Ascherson discuss national identity in light of the approaching referendum on Scottish independence.
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Published in: HomeA democracy of journalists
The stramash over abuse of power and standards at Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp should reinvigorate the idea of journalists’ self-regulation, says Neal Ascherson.
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Published in: HomeAbkhazia and the Caucasus: the west’s choice
The Georgia-Russia war of August 2008 refroze a region. The small Black Sea nation of Abkhazia is the key to its unblocking, says Neal Ascherson.
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Published in: HomeCharles de Gaulle remembered
A London radio broadcast on 18 June 1940 by an unknown French officer altered history’s course. It was also the first act in Charles de Gaulle’s extraordinary thirty-year role as national-political leader and embodiment of “a certain idea of France”. Neal Ascherson traverses a landscape of memory - from Greenock to Paris, Algiers to Warsaw - to recall his encounters with a colossus of French and European history.
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Published in: Home1989: how it ended
The wave of change across east-central Europe in 1989 was a real revolution - but with one missing feature. Neal Ascherson recalls a time of surprise and exhiliration.