Reappraisals: Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century
Penguin Press HC, The - Penguin Press HC, The
Release date: 2008-04-17
Hardcover
Author: Tony Judt
History, History - General History, History: World, Historiography, History / Modern / 21st Century, Modern - 20th Century, Modern - 21st Century, 20th century, History, Modern, Twentieth century
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Reappraisals: Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century
Date undefinedThose who buy this book expecting a follow-up to Postwar will be disappointed. It is a series of essays on an eclectic range of subjects from discussions of early twentieth century social critics (including some sexual preferences and conquests of one) to a hypothetical discussion about why the French Army collapsed before the German onslaught in May of 1940 and how things might have turned out differently, to discussions of relatively recent developments in American and European society. There is some criticism of Israel, which for a segment of readers is anathema.
The best part of the book is the introduction which laments the fading of the lessons of the 20th century in the public mind. It is Judt's position that we are too soon forgetting hard lessons that we have learned and that the 20th century is not that far behind us after all. His delivery of this message (common to historians) is compelling.
Judt is an excellent historian whose views are worthwhile reading whether you agree or not. There is something for about everyone here. My suggestion, read the introduction and those essays that interest you and skip the rest. At $7.99 the book is worth the price. At $29.99 I'm not so sure.
Reappraisals: Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century
Date undefinedEveryone who has read Tony Judt's "Postwar" knows that he is a historian of the first order, who marshals a broad array of facts in a manner that illuminates crucial trends and ironic twists in history. "Reappraisals" is not a narrative history but a collection of articles, nearly all of them book reviews. However, taken together, they throw important light on many of the most important intellectual and political developments and events of the twentieth century. Their elucidatory value derives both from Judt's vast erudition, which he always employs for clarification, never for display, and from his evaluations of the events, people, and ideas that he discusses. These evaluations are nearly always sensible, fair, and insightful. I say this even though Judt's calls himself a man of the Left, and I am a supporter of the free market.
In fact, the aspect of Judt's historical judgements that I found most interesting is how similar they are to those of libertarians and conservatives. With one exception (discussed below), Judt's harshest criticism is directed at Leftists who are unwilling to acknowledge fully the horrors of Communism. In his review of Kolakowski's "Main Currents of Marxism" (pages 129-46), he points out that these horrors were inherent in and unavoidable from the nature of Marxism. More broadly, he points out that the twentieth century has taught two crucial lessons, which no one is entitled to ignore (page 419). One is the seemingly innate propensity of the state, no matter what doctrines it espouses, to develop in a totalitarian direction. The other is that "[whether] murderous or benevolent, the state is a strikingly inefficient economic actor." The result (pages 427, 430) is that the Left no longer has an "articulated vision of a good, or even of a better, society." Without such a vision, the Left in Europe has become conservative. It often fights to maintain privileges, like price supports for agricultural products and early retirement on full pay for government employees, which are defended by well-organized blocks of voters, but inhibit the economic growth needed to supply truly necessary benefits. What are these truly necessary benefits that the state should provide? Judt says what he thinks they are, but only in general and vague terms (e.g., pages 385, 429-30). Some of his arguments are impossible to refute. For instance, he says (page 422) that the Italian government's "huge and inefficient civil service," "overstaffed public services," "discredited system of wage-price linkage," and "corrupt" institutionalized aid to southern Italy have all been necessary and even desirable because Italians have a deeply rooted cultural expectation that the state should solve social problems; and if this expectation had been thwarted, the result would have been political collapse. Not only is this argument not open to refutation, it is as conservative as an argument can be.
I mentioned that with one exception Judt's harshest criticism is directed at those of his fellow Leftists who are unwilling to acknowledge fully the horrors of Communism. It is that one exception that constitutes the only glaring defect in these essays. Even harsher than his condemnations of Communism are his condemnations of Israel. He thus is guilty of a fault that so commonly mars the judgement of Left-wing Jewish intellectuals. To take just one example, on page 390, Judt says, "Since its inception, the state of Israel has fought a number of wars of choice (indeed, the only exception was the Yom Kippur War)." But in an essay on the 1967 War, which is also reprinted in this book (pages 268-85), Judt points out (page 274) that when Egypt's president Nasser closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping, he must have known that war was inevitable. Nevertheless (page 275), Israel tried to get Britain, France, and the USA to honor their pledge to guarantee Israel's right to use the Straits of Tiran. The war started when they refused. The Arabs, who had five times more tanks than the Israelis and four times more planes, made it clear (page 276) that their goal was the complete annihilation of Israel. When the fighting started Israel's prime minister asked Jordan's king to stay out of the fighting (page 276). If Egypt would have accepted the UN's call for a cease-fire on June 6, when it was proposed, instead of waiting for June 8, Israel would not have occupied eastern Jerusalem or the West Bank (page 277). Judt's allegation that Israel chose to fight every war in which it engaged, except 1973, is even more preposterous with regard its first war. On November 29, 1947, the UN voted to partition the area between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River into two countries: Israel and an Arab country. Israel was to have less than half of that territory. Even that tiny area had approximately 650,000 Arabs, which nearly equalled the Jewish population. Nevertheless the Jewish population accepted the UN plan without reservation; and five Arab countries sent their armies to Israel to obliterate it.
Reappraisals: Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century
Date undefinedI give this book 5 stars, not because I agree with everything its author says but because it's such a good read. The book is comprised of essays published between 1997 - 2006. The first two sections contain a series of portraits of some of the most influential people of the 20th century; Koestler, Arendt, Camus and others. Tony Judt, who Christopher Hitchens calls a former 'kibbutznik', also writes a sympathetic piece on Edward Said. This is one of the reasons why he's not so kindly received in some quarters. Even though Said apparently didn't advocate political violence (in contrast with for example Sartre), he is sometimes referred to by his adversaries as the 'Professor of Terror'. Judt is also highly critical of modern-day Israel. This is sure-fire way to lower the ratings. We all know that you should not judge a book on your own political preferences but there you go.
These are the actual reappraisals, I suppose, and the remainder of the book reflects on Europe, the United States and Israel since WW II. In an essay called 'The Silence of the Lambs: On the Strange Death of Liberal America', Judt laments the tacit consent by leading liberals of President Bush's 'catastrophic foreign policy'. Some intellectuals even trip over each other in order to praise the war in Iraq in particular and the GWOT (Global War On Terror) in general. The Left, as represented by Tony Blair, has lost its credibility, perhaps even its raison d'être. In order to survive, it has to shoulder its responsibility for the failures of the 20th century and reassess many of its central themes. In absence of a clear vision the Left will simply stagnate and wither away. As Judt acutely observes: 'to be on the left is to be a conservative'.
I highly recommend 'Reappraisals' to anyone interested in recent history - and in the future, however gloomy it might appear.
