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Reappraisals: Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century

by Tony Judt

Reappraisals: Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century Cover

ISBN13: 9781594201363
ISBN10: 1594201366
Condition: Standard
Dustjacket: Standard
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Review-A-Day

"The head of the Remarque Institute at New York University, Judt has moonlighted as a prolific and provocative essayist. Now a new collection of essays...confirms Judt as one of the most versatile public intellectuals working in the English language today. In twenty-four pieces, he covers an astonishingly broad range of twentieth-century life — from Whittaker Chambers to the state of the railways in Europe — almost always writing with authority, anchored in a depth and breadth of reading that few could match." Jonathan Freedland, The New York Review of Books (read the entire New York Review of Books review)

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

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 been accompanied by a comparably accelerated amnesia. The twentieth century has become "history" at an unprecedented rate. The world of 2007 is so utterly unlike that of even 1987, much less any earlier time, that we have lost touch with our immediate past even before we have begun to make sense of it. In less than a generation, the headlong advance of globalization, with the geographical shifts of emphasis and influence it brings in its wake, has altered the structures of thought that had been essentially unchanged since the European industrial revolution. Quite literally, we don't know where we came from.

The results have proved calamitous thus far, with the prospect of far worse. We have lost touch with a century of social thought and socially motivated social activism. We no longer know how to discuss such concepts and have forgotten the role once played by intellectuals in debating, transmitting, and defending the ideas that shaped their time. In Reappraisals, Tony Judt resurrects the key aspects of the world we have lost in order to remind us how important they still are to us now and to our hopes for the future.

Reappraisals draws provocative connections between a dazzling range of subjects, from the history of the neglect and recovery of the Holocaust and the challenge of "evil" in the understanding of the European past to the rise and fall of the "state" in public affairs and the displacement of history by "heritage." With his trademark acuity and lan, Tony Judt takes us beyond what we think we know to show us how we came to know it and reveals how many aspects of our history have been sacrificed in the triumph of mythmaking over understanding, collective identity over truth, and denial over memory. His book is a road map back to the historical sense we so vitally need.

Review:

"Historian and political commentator Judt warns against the temptation 'to look back upon the twentieth century as an age of political extremes, of tragic mistakes and wrongheaded choices; an age of delusion from which we have now, thankfully, emerged.' In this collection of 24 previously printed essays (nearly all from the New York Review of Books and the New Republic), Judt, whose recent book Postwar was a Pulitzer finalist, pleads with readers to remember that the past never completely disappears and that the coming century is as fraught with dangers as the last. Buttressing his argument, Judt draws upon an impressively broad array of subjects. He begins by describing the eclipse of intellectuals as a public force (for instance, the steep decline in Arthur Koestler's reputation) before reminding his audience of the immense power of ideas by discussing the now inexplicable attractions of Marxism in the 20th century. In the book's penultimate section, Judt examines the rise of the state in the politics and economics of Western nations before finally tackling the United States, its foreign policy and the fate of liberalism. As a fascinating exploration of the world we have recently lost — for good or bad, or both — this collection, despite its lack of new content, cannot be bested." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Synopsis:

From one of the greatest historians and public intellectuals come these reflections on a 20th century that is turning into ancient history with unprecedented speed, and at great cost to understanding and truth.

About the Author

Tony Judt was born in London in 1948. He was educated at King's College, Cambridge, and the ƒcole Normale SupŽrieure, Paris, and has taught at Cambridge, Oxford, Berkeley, and New York University, where he is currently the Erich Maria Remarque Professor of European Studies and Director of the Remarque Institute, which is dedicated to the study of Europe and that he founded in 1995. The author or editor of twelve books, he is 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. Professor Judt is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and a Permanent Fellow of the Institut fŸr die Wissenschaften vom Menschen (Vienna). His most recent book, Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945, was one of The New York Times Book Review's Ten Best Books of 2005, the winner of the Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Book Award, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 1 comment:

xje, October 21, 2008 (view all comments by xje)
Sounds like an amazing book. I would like to read it.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9781594201363
Subtitle:
Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century
Author:
Judt, Tony
Publisher:
Penguin Press HC, The
Subject:
History, modern
Subject:
Twentieth century
Subject:
Modern - 21st Century
Subject:
Modern - 20th Century
Subject:
Historiography
Subject:
History, Modern -- 20th century.
Copyright:
Publication Date:
20080417
Binding:
Hardback
Grade Level:
General/trade
Language:
English
Pages:
464
Dimensions:
9.43x6.50x1.40 in. 1.61 lbs.

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Reappraisals: Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century Used Hardcover
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$17.95 In Stock
Product details 464 pages Penguin Press - English 9781594201363 Reviews:
"Publishers Weekly Review" by , "Historian and political commentator Judt warns against the temptation 'to look back upon the twentieth century as an age of political extremes, of tragic mistakes and wrongheaded choices; an age of delusion from which we have now, thankfully, emerged.' In this collection of 24 previously printed essays (nearly all from the New York Review of Books and the New Republic), Judt, whose recent book Postwar was a Pulitzer finalist, pleads with readers to remember that the past never completely disappears and that the coming century is as fraught with dangers as the last. Buttressing his argument, Judt draws upon an impressively broad array of subjects. He begins by describing the eclipse of intellectuals as a public force (for instance, the steep decline in Arthur Koestler's reputation) before reminding his audience of the immense power of ideas by discussing the now inexplicable attractions of Marxism in the 20th century. In the book's penultimate section, Judt examines the rise of the state in the politics and economics of Western nations before finally tackling the United States, its foreign policy and the fate of liberalism. As a fascinating exploration of the world we have recently lost — for good or bad, or both — this collection, despite its lack of new content, cannot be bested." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)
"Review A Day" by , "The head of the Remarque Institute at New York University, Judt has moonlighted as a prolific and provocative essayist. Now a new collection of essays...confirms Judt as one of the most versatile public intellectuals working in the English language today. In twenty-four pieces, he covers an astonishingly broad range of twentieth-century life — from Whittaker Chambers to the state of the railways in Europe — almost always writing with authority, anchored in a depth and breadth of reading that few could match." (read the entire New York Review of Books review)
"Synopsis" by , From one of the greatest historians and public intellectuals come these reflections on a 20th century that is turning into ancient history with unprecedented speed, and at great cost to understanding and truth.
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