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Talking with Tony Judt


Tony Judt is a historian - and brave man to boot for taking on the Israel Lobby - who many see as almost a legend in his own lifetime.

The Nation prefaces a Q & A with Judt:

"In October historian Tony Judt gave a lecture at New York University, where he is a professor and director of the Remarque Institute, on the fate of Western social democracy. The talk was remarkable not only for what was said but for how Judt--who has advanced amyoptrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig's disease, and is paralyzed from the neck down--had memorized his talk, which he delivered from his wheelchair, his face partially obscured behind the breathing apparatus he calls his "facial Tupperware." Several months later he published a version of the talk in The New York Review of Books, and when that caught fire he expanded the talk into a short book. Ill Fares the Land (Penguin Press; $25.95) traces the history of the postwar state in the United States and Europe, showing how rampant privatization, an excess of individualism and the worship of the market have produced unacceptable levels of inequality. Disparaging both extreme left- and right-wing solutions, Judt makes a case for social democracy, advocating a new conversation about our collective responsibilities as citizens, humanists and human beings."

Read the Q & A, here.

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