Reappraisals: Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century - Hardcover

Tony Judt

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0434017418 ISBN 13: 9780434017416

Publisher: William Heinemann, 2008

Synopsis

Unusual book

About this title

About the Author:

Tony Judt (1948-2010) was a British historian, essayist, author, editor, and university professor. He specialized in European history, was the Erich Maria Remarque Professor in European Studies at New York University, and director of NYU's Erich Maria Remarque Institute. He was a frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement, the New Republic, the New York Times, and many other journals in Europe and the United States. In 1996 he was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 2007 a corresponding fellow of the British Academy. His book Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

Review:

"In Reappraisals the British-born historian, now a university professor in New York, collects 23 essays, written between 1994 and 2006, in which he undertakes a ruthless dissection of the ruling illusions of the post-cold war years...There are illuminating assessments of Primo Levi and Hannah Arendt, a superb deconstruction of the fall of France in 1940, explorations of Belgium's fractured statehood and the ambiguous position of Romania in Europe, analyses of the Cuba crisis and Kissinger's diplomacy, and much else besides...Judt is a liberal thinker dedicated to demystifying liberal illusions. Reappraisals is an indispensable tract for the times by one of the great political writers of the age" -- John Gray * Guardian * "Judt is a highly readable authority... He delivers the intellectual's equivalent of a left hook...the uppercut soon follows...and finally, a knockout punch...The intellectual's intellectual" -- Niall Ferguson * Financial Times * "Tony Judt...has an enviable grasp of European cultural history and a sharp and sometimes savage turn of phrase, both of which are well displayed in this collection of long essays and book reviews...[He is] shrewd and revealing...you feel you have been eavesdropping on a sparkling conversation" * The Economist * "An exhilarating new collection of essays...In Reappraisals he looks back at the tragedy of Europe in the 20th century - although one should really say the four decades from the outbreak of World War I until the death of Stalin - and in particular at the Jewish tragedy. Judt writes informatively about Manes Sperber, tenderly about Primo Levi, enthusiastically about Hannah Arendt... Few are better than Tony Judt, not only a historian of the first rank but (in a word we need an equivalent for) a politicologue who gives engagement a good name" -- Geoffrey Wheatcroft * International Herald Tribune * "A superb collection of essays" * Daily Telegraph *

About this edition

• Publisher: William Heinemann
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0434017418
• ISBN 13: 9780434017416
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 464