Biography

• Born on 12 July 1955 in London
• After reading Modern History at Oxford, his research into the German resistance to Hitler took him to Berlin, where he lived, in both the western and eastern halves of the divided city, for several years.
• From there, he started to travel widely behind the iron curtain. Throughout the nineteen eighties, he became one of the leading chroniclers and journalistic escorts of the emancipation of Central Europe from communism.
• From 1986 to 87 he was a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington DC.
• Since 1990, he has been a Fellow of St Antony’s College, Oxford, where he directed the European Studies Centre from 2001 to 2006 and is now Isaiah Berlin Professorial Fellow.
• He became a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, in 2000.
• In addition to his scientific work, his other activities also include involvement in the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and writing regular columns for the “Guardian” – which are also published in leading European newspapers – as well as contributions for the “New York Review of Books”.