Timothy Garton Ash

Timothy Garton Ash was made a patron of Humanists UK for his contribution to advancing human rights, equality, and justice and his journalism on issues of concern to humanists and his humanist contributions to ethical questions in public life.

Historian



Timothy Garton Ash is a historian, commentator, author, and academic. He currently holds the position of Professor of European Studies at the University of Oxford and is the author of ten books spanning a variety of political, historical, and cultural topics. Timothy’s work has mainly concerned the contemporary history of Europe and the European Union as well as the challenge of combining liberal democratic principles and diversity, especially in relation to free speech.

A staunch supporter of freedom of speech, human rights, and liberal democracy, Timothy first came to prominence during the Cold War as a outspoken critic of human rights violations and illiberalism within the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc.

Since then, Timothy’s essays and articles regular appear in the Guardian, the New York Review of Books, the Independent, the Times, the Financial Times, and many others. During the 1980s he was Foreign Editor of the Spectator and in 2005 he was listed in Time magazine’s world’s 100 most influential people.