I really enjoyed this book – Tony Judt was a fine author and the book was a quick and enjoyable read. The book runs through the history and contributions of "social democracy", European-style leftwing progressivism, or "socialism" as many wrongly label similar in the United States. Tony Judt revi...
We're in a terrible fix, and Tony Judt, with his characteristic clear-headed and highly knowledgable approach, goes into considerable detail about how we got here. His arguments are very compelling to me, because I sensed (but unsystematically and inchoately) the same things. With his backgroun...
It's great to read clear thinking about present day economics. Judt gives a sweeping view of popular and economic thinking and politicking since before World War II. For all it's damning of our putting individual profit above shared social welfare, and our lack of caring for one another and sens...
Judt's big point is that we need relearn the discourse of equality and public good. In that he is definitely right. Although there are cracks in the armour, the discourse of capitalist realism is very much alive and well. Especially among the youth of the 60s. Points for offering solutions in add...
A robust memoir written with wit and passion, and a sparkling ability to connect the pieces of life and history - and to charm the meaning to the surface.How does a historian record his own life? Not so much unlike a novelist, I would say, as I deeply enjoyed the unabashedly literary style of the...
It's hard to separate the contents of this book from the circumstances in which it was written. Trapped in an increasingly immobile body, Judt composed stories (essays, really) at night to keep his mind occupied and to divert his attention from the fact that he simply couldn't move. That strugg...
This is history writ large done to perfection. Judt has compressed a lifetime of study and exploration of European cultural memes into this masterwork, one which abounds with erudition, penetrating analysis, and wise reflection. Judt states in his introduction that he hoped to produce a work that...
From one of our greatest historians and public intellectuals, reflections on a twentieth century that is turning into ancient history, when it's not being displaced by myth or forgotten entirely, with unprecedented speed and at great cost The accelerating changes of the past generation have be...
The Case of Whittaker Chambers In the fall of 1993, Maria Schmidt, a young Hungarian historian in Budapest, phoned me in New York. She had a question. “Tell me about ‘Alger Hiss’?” I explained as briefly as I could. “You mean that there are people in the United States who still believe that he wa...