Ralf Dahrendorf

The rise of a new Europe prompts many questions, most of which remain to be answered. What does it all mean? Where is it going to lead? This text ponders these and other equally vexing questions.

The Oxford-based Central and East European Publishing Project was a remarkable initiative to support embattled Central and East European publishers and journals, and to punch holes through the cultural iron curtain by encouraging translations and a 'common market of the mind' between East and West. The nine years of its existence straddle the largest watershed in European history since 1945, and the Project's history - told here by some of its leading participants - illuminates the nature of the recent changes in Central and Eastern Europe. In a vivid personal account, Timothy Garton Ash recalls the work of the Project, ranging from smuggling in subsidies to underground journals and samizdat publishers in the pre-1989 period to supporting high-quality translations and East-West workshops in the period after 1989. Also included are an Introduction in which Ralf Dahrendorf, Chairman of the Project, reflects on the importance of both publishing and foundations for a healthy civil society; an annotated catalogue of the Project's work, prepared by Elizabeth Winter; and a detailed and original report by Richard Davy on the state of publishing in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and Hungary, with suggestions for further Western help.

The London School of Economics and Political Science - the LSE - is one of the most famous academic institutions in the world. This history provides a lively account of the first century of a university which, from its beginnings, has captured not only the minds of social scientists but also the imagination of a wider public. It is the biography of an institution written by an author who was closely involved as a student and later as Director of the School and who remains deeply attached to it. The book places the School in the context of the drama of the twentieth century and it does so through a mirror, the mirror of the social sciences. Lord Dahrendorf traces the story of the LSE from its 'invention' by Beatrice and Sidney Webb, George Bernard Shaw, and Graham Wallas at a breakfast in August 1894, through its foundation in 1895, the travails of its early years, the triumphs of the Beveridge era between the wars, the great expansion of the post-war period, and the changing moods of the succeeding decades, including the 'troubles' of 1968. The individuals and the events of the LSE's century of existence have been memorable, yet the School has always been more than the sum of its parts. Its base is London, and its home the world.