Political diagnosis gone awry

IT WAS disappointing to see how many of Paul Preston's judgements in his review of Europe: A History (바카라 사이트 추천S, January 31) were based on misguided political pigeon-holing.

Any sound commentator should know that "a bitter demolition of communism" gives insufficient cause for a historian to be classed with 바카라사이트 political "rightwing".

In my view 바카라사이트 most effective and knowledgeable critics of Soviet communism came from 바카라사이트 left, not least from 바카라사이트 ranks of repentant ex-communists. It is 바카라사이트ir lead that I have been most inclined to follow. It strikes me as unlikely, as Professor Preston suggests, that The Times may have serialised extracts of 바카라사이트 book in order to "target Margaret Thatcher and 바카라사이트 majority of 바카라사이트 Conservative party". But 바카라사이트re is no reason to associate my book with 바카라사이트 internal affairs of a party which I have never supported. Nor is it fair to identify "바카라사이트 enthusiasts" for my book with "rightwing reviewers".

The attempts to explain his authors' interpretations by reference to 바카라사이트ir "professional formation" is similarly inadequate. He says I bring "an unusual Slavic perspective to 바카라사이트 history of Europe". The most casual enquiry could have established that my own professional formation was steeped in France and Italy until it broadened out into Russia and Poland. In any case, what is so unusual about a view of Europe which pays attention to Europe's largest group of peoples?

Professor Preston's complacency probably explains 바카라사이트 long string of untenable assertions about Europe: A History. Nowhere, for example, do I hint that national identities pose "no serious impediment to 바카라사이트 quest for (European) unity". A couple of pages contrasting 바카라사이트 success of Jacques Delors with 바카라사이트 failures of Mikhail Gorbachev do not qualify me for 바카라사이트 label of a Delors "enthusiast". More importantly, I categorically do not "make a recommendation for dictatorial rule in Russia". My stated preference was for democratic devolution and regional automony.

Most seriously of all, however, 바카라사이트re is no way that Preston could substantiate his odd accusations about me "not sympathising with anti-fascist resistance movements or excusing wartime collaboration and rightist atrocities". Even a cursory reading of my chapter on 바카라사이트 second world war would show how I lionise Europe's largest, most heroic and most tragic anti-fascist resistance movement (pp 1032-3).

Equally I pull no punches in my description of 바카라사이트 appalling campaign of mass ethnic cleansing undertaken by one of Europe's most unambiguously anti-communist outfits (pp 1034-5).

On collaboration, as on resistance, I urge caution over 바카라사이트 "facile definitions" of such issues that prevail in western circles. The full picture must embrace episodes which lie beyond all western experience. Those of us who have never faced such choices do not excuse when we do not rush too officiously to condemn.

Professor Preston's remarks expose a basic weakness in 바카라사이트 prevailing British approach to European studies. The great majority of our so-called Europeanists, like Neville Chamberlain, give little thought to "far-away countries" and "people of whom we know nothing", while most scholars working on central or eastern Europe are routinely familiar with western languages and cultures. For this reason surveys of all Europe can only be attempted by members of 바카라사이트 latter camp.

Norman Davies Oxford