This is a truly excellent book, both for its content (which is incredibly thought-provoking) and the fascinating insight into two incredible minds. The mental library that these two men carry and reference effortlessly through the book is astonishing.
In doing a reread I have found myself frequently wondering what Tony Judt would have to say in more recent political happenings.

Rigging the past is the oldest form of knowledge control: If you have power over the interpretation of what went before (or can simply lie about it), the present and the future are at your disposal. So it is simple democratic prudence to ensure that the citizenry are historically informed.


This sort of text defies a review. Being a recorded and transcribed conversation, it requests a similar treatment. The nature of the book is that Tony Judt facing ALS was physically unable to write and instead enlisted the support of Timothy Snyder for a series of conversations comprising an intellectual history of 20th Century Europe and the U.S. Bracketing these exchanges are Judt's autobiographical ruminations on childhood and academia, his immersion in both Zionism and Leftist studies and his unexpected arrival somewhere outside that trajectory. This book was essentially thrust into my hands last weekend. I had went to visit my friend Harold who runs a book stall at the monthly hipster flea market. We began discussing Žižek and before long it was on to corporations moving to the Balkans and "right to work" states. Heidegger's ontological theology gave way to bullshit post-humanism and why I, jon faith, should be reading the lectures of Foucault. That last point resonated. Drawing attention back to Judt's book, there is something to be said for conversation the point therof, not simply the wagging of lips. I am not of the mind that regards discussion as Hegelian, that somehow synthesis is achieved, but I still enjoy the crackle and contemplation of such exchanges.

Judt reflects evenly on ideology and trends in social thought. He articulates nicely the tension between civic responsibility and moral responsibility. He doesn't believe that books will correct much. The people who read them already agree with the author. There is no chance of influence. Strangely enough, he endorses investigative journalists with responsibility of social change. Not by themselves but it is their efforts which can sway a somnambulist world view. Provided of course that core education hasn't eroded completely by that point. Following the pedagogic thread, he is more aligned with a conservative, research driven history than its hyphenated ilk. I found his thoughts on such fascinating.

I'd never heard of Tony Judt before I got this book for Christmas, but the format and the chapter themes were intriguing enough so that I ended up devouring the whole thing in two days. It's always a pleasure to read two intelligent people exchanging thoughts. Although I find intellectual history a bit too elitist for my taste, there is much more in the book. The main theme seems to be the rise of the state in the 20th century, the different forms it took, and the form it should perhaps take. Sometimes Judt's pluralism feels a bit like fence-sitting, but for someone coming from the Nordic countries, it was easy to identify with his politics. Recommended, absolutely.

Striking and fascinating and really elegantly articulated by both snyder and the late judt. Altered the way I think about history as well as contemporary politics. The book is quite Eurocentric and judt can be a bit dismissive of non European history and ideas. Judt at times also comes across as a little edgy and anti-PC, if you know what I mean. But overall this is a very illuminating and gripping read and the conversations between Snyder and Judt are smart, thought provoking, challenging, often funny, and very much worth diving into.

”The space between cultural conversation and rhetorical murder is a very thin one.”

”It is one thing to say that I am willing to suffer now for an unknowable but possibly better future. It is quite another to authorize the suffering of others in the name of that same unverifiable hypothesis. That...is the intellectual sin of the century: passing judgement on the fate of others in the name of their future as you see it, a future in which you may have no investment, but concerning which you claim exclusive and perfect information.”

It's not the history and politics in this book that draws me (though some of it was quite useful, especially revisiting the banality of evil/good), as much as some of the secondary considerations: the use of personal narrative and conversation as a basis for writing intellectual history; the reflections on the task of the historian and the public intellectual; the reflections on the importance of writing well; and so on. I have a lot of notes scribbled in the back of my copy.

simply wonderful. It helps me clear a lot of questions I’ve been thinking and hard to figure out myself due to lack of backgrounds and learning in some of the areas