Saturday, August 7, 2010

Tony Judt

New York Magazine’s website reports:
"Multiple sources are reporting that historian, writer, and academic Tony Judt has died after a long battle with ALS. Last March, he told New York: 'The meaning of our life ... is only incorporated in the way other people feel about us. Once I die, my life will acquire meaning in the way they see whatever it is I did, for them, for the world, the people I've known.'"
I first saw the news here. A New York Times remembrance is here. Ralph Luker posts a compelling short film.

Judt is the author of Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 of which Publisher’s Weekly said: “This is the best history we have of Europe in the postwar period and not likely to be surpassed for many years.”

His most recent book is Ill Fares the Land.

Judt has written powerful reflections in the New York Review of Books, as he gradually succumbed to ALS disease which he discussed in an essay Night. His most recent essay, The Meritocrats, reflects on his time at Kings College, Cambridge University.

Photo of Judt.