Given the current world climate it is hard to find a balanced voice. Free World is that. Timothy Garton Ash has the experience needed to write such a work. His books on Europe in the late Eighties and Nineties are essential reading if you wish to understand the European epoch since the fall of the Berlin Wall. This time around he covers more ambitious territory: America vs. Europe and the place of Britain in this new post September 11th world. This is quite readable and more importantly quite wise. Ash shows clearly that propagandistic hysteria in the face of the present moment is probably the worst of all responses. He emphasizes what is crucially needed in this polarized world: Dialogue. His recommendations are keen and genuine. Buy several copies of this book and give them to friends of ANY political persuasion. Let's not talk about 'them' in superior tones. Let's realize that our differences will never disappear and talk nonetheless.