Tony Barber is an editor and specialist writer on European politics, history, economic and business news. He is a former bureau chief for the Financial Times in Frankfurt, Rome and Brussels. He began his career with Reuters news agency, serving in the United States (New York, Washington and Chicago), Austria, Poland, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. He wrote the introduction to "Mud Sweeter Than Honey", a book on communist Albania by the Polish author Margo Rejmer. He published a collection of his poetry under the title "Our Hearts' Desire and other poems". He was born in London and attended St John's College, University of Oxford, where he achieved a First Class Honours degree in Modern History.