Europe's Crisis: Debt & Damage

Timothy Garton Ash and economist Simon Johnson on the European debt crisis and the future of Europe.

The last time Timothy Garton Ash was at the heart of European upheaval was the end of the Cold War, with the Berlin Wall coming down, and an explosion of freedom. Europe’s future looked dazzling. The full E.U., and glory days, were yet to come.

Now, what’s exploded is European debt. Greece has imploded; Ireland, too. Europe’s union is in trouble - and so is its place in the world. And Garton Ash is there again, the journalist-scholar, watching, weighing as the whole world watches.

We speak with Timothy Garton Ash, and economist Simon Johnson, about the fate and future of Europe.
-Tom Ashbrook
Guest:

Timothy Garton Ash, professor of European studies in the University of Oxford, professorial fellow at St. Antony’s College, Oxford, and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He writes a weekly column for Britain's Guardian and his essays appear regularly in The New York Review of Books. His new book is Facts are Subversive: Political Writing From a Decade Without a Name.

Simon Johnson, professor of global economics and management at MIT’s Sloan School of Management and former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund. He is author of 13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and The Next Financial Meltdown. Read his recent "Baseline Scenario" blog post: "Imminent European Default: How Likely?"