Baltic

THE MUST-READ BOOK ON THE WORLD'S BIGGEST FLASHPOINT'Magnificent ... As exciting to read as it is important' Peter Frankopan'Fascinating ... essential reading' Helen Thompson'Alarming and uplifting' John KampfnerThe Baltic will decide the course of the West in the coming years.These nine borderlands are not only the historical battleground of Russian aggression; they are also a factory of ideas for how to revive Europe. Shaped by the past one hundred years, each Baltic country offers lessons in adaptability, hope and prosperity in an era of instability.Innovation in Estonia, patience in Finland, resilience in Poland, even poetry in Latvia: with their tumultuous pasts and exposed geography, these poorly understood frontline states are reconfiguring the balance of power around the heart of Eurasia. From pioneering environmental initiatives and world-leading innovations in technology to ever-growing economies, from tackling disinformation to tempering the populist right, the Baltic states are now key to understanding how political events might unfold in the coming years.Blending history, politics and reportage, this is the first book to explain why these are some of our most imaginative allies, yet most of us know so little about them. Interviewing prime ministers, presidents, generals, intelligence officers, business leaders and ordinary people, Oliver Moody traces the extraordinary emergence of a new fulcrum of great-power rivalry. But the real reason we need to understand them is that their fate is ours.

Oliver Moody has been the Berlin bureau chief for The Times since 2018, covering Germany and northern and central Europe. The same year, he was named science and data commentator and young commentator of the year at the UK Comment Awards. He was journalist in residence at the WZB Berlin social science centre in 2024. He lives in Berlin with his wife and their two young children.