A great thinker's final testament: a characteristically wise and forthright collection of essays from the author ofPostwarandThinking the Twentieth Century, spanning a career of extraordinary intellectual engagement. Edited and introduced by Jennifer Homans.
Tony Judts first collection of essays,Reappraisals, was centred on twentieth-century Europe in history and memory. Some of Judts most prominent and indeed controversial essays felt outside of the scope ofReappraisals, most notably his writings on the state of Israel and its relationship to Palestine. There would be time, it was thought, to fit these essays into a larger frame. Sadly, this would not be the case, at least during the authors own life.
Now, inWhen the Facts Change, Tony Judts widow and fellow historian, Jennifer Homans, has found the frame, gathering together important essays from the span of Judts career that chronicle both the evolution of his thought and the remarkable consistency of his passionate engagement and intellectual élan. Whether the subject is the scholarly poverty of the new social history, the willful blindness of French collective memory about what happened to the countrys Jews during World War II, or the moral challenge to Israel of the so-called Palestinian problem, the majesty of Tony Judts work lies in his combination of unsparing honesty, intellectual brilliance, and ethical clarity.When the Facts Changeexemplifies the utility, indeed the necessity, of minding our history and not letting cheerful fictions suffice in its place. An emphatic demonstration of the power of a great historian to connect us more deeply to the world as it was, as it is, and as it should be, it is a fitting capstone to an extraordinary body of work.
Tony Judt was educated at King's College, Cambridge and the École Normale Supérieure, Paris, and taught at Cambridge, Oxford, and Berkeley. He was the Erich Maria Remarque Professor of European Studies at New York University, as well as founder and director of the Remarque Institute, creating an ongoing conversation between Europe and America.
The author or editor of fourteen books, Professor Judt was a frequent contributor to theNew York Review of Books, theTimes Literary Supplement, theNew Republic, theNew York Timesand many other journals across Europe and the United States. Professor Judt is the author ofThe MemoryChalet,Ill Fares the Land,Reappraisals: Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century,Thinking the Twentieth Century (with Timothy Snyder)andPostwar: A History of Europe Since 1945, which was one of theNew 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 and shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize. He died in August 2010 at the age of sixty-two.
