Tony Judt | |
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| Born | Tony Robert Judt (1948-01-02)2 January 1948 London, England |
| Died | 6 August 2010(2010-08-06) (aged 62) New York City, U.S. |
| Alma mater | King's College, Cambridge École Normale Supérieure |
| Occupation(s) | Historian;Erich Maria Remarque Professor in European Studies atNew York University |
| Spouse | Jennifer Homans |
Tony Robert JudtFBA (/dʒʌt/JUT; 2 January 1948 – 6 August 2010)[1] was an English historian, essayist and university professor who specialised inEuropean history. Judt moved to New York and served as theErich Maria Remarque Professor in European Studies atNew York University and director of NYU'sRemarque Institute. He was director of theNew York Institute for the Humanities from 1993 to 1996. Judt was a frequent contributor toThe New York Review of Books. He was elected a Fellow of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1996 and a corresponding Fellow of theBritish Academy in 2007.
Judt was born on 2 January 1948 inLondon,England, tosecular Jewish parents,[1] Isaac Joseph ("Joe") Judt and Stella S Judt. His mother's parents had emigrated from Russia and Romania, and his father was born in Belgium and had immigrated as a boy to Ireland and then subsequently to England. Judt's parents lived inNorth London, but due to the closure of the local hospitals in response to an outbreak of infantdysentery, Judt was born in aSalvation Army maternity unit inBethnal Green, in theEast End of London.[2] When he was a small boy, the family moved fromTottenham to a flat above his mother's business inPutney, South London. When Judt was nine years of age, following the birth of his sister, the family moved to a house inKingston-upon-Thames, Surrey. The family's main language was English, although Judt often spoke French to his father and his father's family.[3]
Judt won a place atEmanuel School inWandsworth, and following his education at Emanuel, he went on to study as a scholarship student atKing's College, Cambridge.[4] He was the first member of his family to finish secondary school and to go to university.[5] At Cambridge, Judt became close friends withMartyn Poliakoff, who later became well known as a chemist and star ofThe Periodic Table of Videos (Judt watched his videos and would regularly write to him about them).[6] He obtained a BA degree in history in 1969 and after spending a year at theÉcole Normale Supérieure in Paris completed a PhD in 1972.[7]
As a high school and university student he was a left-wingZionist, and worked summers on kibbutzim. He moved away from Zionism after theSix-Day War of 1967, later saying, "I went with this idealistic fantasy of creating a socialist, communitarian country", but that he came to realise that left-wing Zionists were "remarkably unconscious of the people who had been kicked out of the country...to make this fantasy possible".[4] He came to describe his Zionism as his particular "ideological overinvestment" and he moved away fromMarxism in the 1970s and 1980s.[8] Judt wrote in February 2010, "Before even turning twenty I had become, been, and ceased to be a Zionist, a Marxist, and a communitarian settler: no mean achievement for a south London teenager".[9] In later life, he described himself as "a universalist social democrat".[9]
After completing his Cambridge doctorate, Judt was elected a junior fellow ofKing's College, Cambridge in 1972, where he taught modern French history until 1978.[10] After a brief stint teaching social history at theUniversity of California, Berkeley, he returned to the United Kingdom in 1980 to teach politics atSt Anne's College, Oxford. He moved toNew York University in 1987.
Judt's works include the highly acclaimedPostwar, a history of Europe after theSecond World War. He was also well known for his views on Israel, which generated significant debate after he advocated aone-state solution to theIsraeli–Palestinian conflict. According to journalist David Herman, Judt's directorship of the Remarque Institute,Postwar and his articles on Israel made him "one of the best-known public intellectuals in America", having previously been "a fairly obscure British historian, specializing in modern French history".[11]
In an interview a few weeks before his death, Judt said, "I see myself as first and above all a teacher of history; next a writer of European history; next a commentator on European affairs; next a public intellectual voice within the American Left; and only then an occasional, opportunistic participant in the pained American discussion of theJewish matter".[12]
Judt was married three times, his first two marriages ending in divorce. His third marriage was toJennifer Homans,The New Republic's dance critic, with whom he had two children.[1][13] In June 2010, Judt and his son Daniel wrote a dialogue about Barack Obama, politics and corporate behaviour forThe New York Times.[14][15]
Judt's experiences in Paris contributed to a long and fruitful relationship with French political culture. He translated his Cambridge doctorate into French and published it in 1976 asLa reconstruction du parti socialiste: 1921–1926. It was introduced by Annie Kriegel, who along withMaurice Agulhon was an important influence on his early work as a French social historian. Judt's second book,Socialism in Provence 1871–1914: A Study in the Origins of the French Modern Left, an "enquiry into a political tradition that shaped a nation",[16] was an attempt to explain early origins and the continuities of left-wing politics in the region. More than any other work by Judt,Socialism in Provence was based on extensive archival research. It was his only attempt to place himself within the social history that was dominant in the 1970s.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Judt was a historian of modern France.Marxism and the French Left: Studies in Labour and Politics in France 1830–1981 collects several previously unpublished essays on the 19th and 20th centuries, ending with a discussion ofFrançois Mitterrand. InPast Imperfect: French Intellectuals, 1944–1956, Judt moved away both from social history toward intellectual history, and from the endorsement ofFrench Left andMarxist traditions to their critique. InPast Imperfect, he castigated French intellectuals of the postwar era, above allJean-Paul Sartre, for their "self-imposed moral amnesia".[17] Judt criticised what he considered blind faith inJoseph Stalin's communism. In Judt's reading, French thinkers such as Sartre were blinded by their own provincialism, and unable to see that their calls for intellectual authenticity should have required them to interrogate their own attachment to communism and criticise the Soviet Union for its policies in postwar eastern Europe. This was in some sense a criticism from within, using French sources and polemical style against famous French intellectuals. Judt made a similar case in some of his more popular writings.
After PresidentJacques Chirac recognised the responsibility of the French state during thecollaboration in 1995, on the anniversary of theVel' d'Hiv raid, Judt wrote in aNew York Times op-ed, "people like Jean-Paul Sartre andMichel Foucault were curiously silent. One reason was their near-obsession with Communism. While proclaiming the need to 'engage', to take a stand, two generations of intellectuals avoided any ethical issue that could not advance or, in some cases, retard the Marxist cause. Vichy was dismissed as the work of a few senile Fascists. No one looked closely at what had happened during the Occupation, perhaps because very few intellectuals of any political stripe could claim to have had a 'good' war, asAlbert Camus did. No one stood up to cry 'J'accuse!' at high functionaries, asÉmile Zola did during theDreyfus affair. WhenSimone de Beauvoir,Roland Barthes andJacques Derrida entered the public arena, it usually involved a crisis far away—in Madagascar, Vietnam or Cambodia. Even today, politically engaged writers call for action in Bosnia but intervene only sporadically in debates about the French past."[18]
In the years after the publication ofPast Imperfect, Judt turned his attention to wider issues of European history. He spent the 1980s and much of the 1990s at Emory, Oxford, Stanford, and Vienna, where he taught political theory, learned Czech and became friendly with a number of east European intellectuals.Erich Maria Remarque's widow, actressPaulette Goddard, bequeathed her fortune toNYU, enabling the Institute of European Studies bearing Remarque's name to come into being under Judt's direction.
Judt's first broader book of this period—the result of a speech delivered at theJohns Hopkins-SAIS Bologna Center in 1995—wasA Grand Illusion? In this extended essay, he dealt directly with theEuropean Union and its prospects, which, in his view, were quite bleak. According to Judt, Europe's sense of its divisions had long been one of the "defining obsessions of its inhabitants".[19]: 46 The benefits of European unity, he argued, were unevenly distributed and the regions that EU policy favoured came to have more in common with each other than with their neighbours in the same state. TheBaden-Württemberg region in southwestern Germany, theRhône-Alpes region of France,Lombardy andCatalonia were invoked as examples of disproportionately rich "super-regions". Another division, Judt claimed, could be seen in theSchengen Agreement. Nothing more than a "highest common factor of discriminatory political arithmetic",[19]: 125 the Schengen Agreement made Eastern European countries into barrier states designed to keep undesirable immigrants at bay. Similar dangers existed in eastern Europe, where former critics of Soviet universalism deftly recycled themselves into anti-European, nationalist agitators.
These problems, Judt wrote, could find resolution only in increased national intervention. States would be called upon to redistribute wealth and preserve the decaying social fabric of the societies they governed. This conception of the role of the state was carried over—albeit in slightly different form—into Judt's 2005 book,Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945.
InPostwar, Judt examined the history of Europe from the end of World War II (1945) to 2005. Writing on such a broad subject was something of a departure for Judt, whose earlier works, such asSocialism in Provence andPast Imperfect, had focused on challenging conventional assumptions about the French Left. At nearly 900 pages,Postwar has won considerable praise for its sweeping, encyclopaedic scope[20] and was a runner-up for the 2006Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction.[21] In Judt's obituary, the BBC wrote thatPostwar was "acclaimed by historians as one of the best works on the subject" of modern European history.[22] TheNew York Times Book Review named the book one of the ten best of 2005[23] and, in 2009, theToronto Star named it the decade's best historical book.[24]
Judt's last book published during his lifetime,Ill Fares the Land, projected lessons learned forward, challenging readers to debate "what comes next?" The book made the case for renewedsocial democracy; it received mixed reviews.[25][26][27]
Written under the debilitating effects ofamyotrophic lateral sclerosis,Ill Fares The Land (2010) has been called Judt's "most overtly political book" and a "dramatic intervention" in the decline of the progressive ideals of the 20th century.[28] Judt laments the breakdown of the postwar Keynesian policy consensus as well as the rise ofneoliberal economics with its political manifestations underThatcher,Reagan, and others. In analysing the limited success achieved byThird Way triangulation and the paradoxical resurgence of unfettered capitalism after the2008 financial crisis, Judt calls the recent past "lost decades" marked by "fantasies of prosperity".[29] The missing reward from modern government has beensocial progress, and Judt explores how thesocial contract that had defined the postwar world—with guarantees of security, stability, and fairness—is no longer considered a legitimate social goal.[30] He concludes the book with a "passionate appeal for a return to social-democratic ideals".[29]
Judt's parents were British citizens and secular Jews.[4] He enthusiastically embraced Zionism at age 15. For a time he wished to emigrate to Israel, against the wishes of his parents, who were concerned about his studies. In 1966, having won an exhibition to King's College, Cambridge, he worked for the summer on kibbutz Machanaim. When Nasser expelled UN troops from Sinai in 1967, and Israel mobilised for war, he volunteered to replace kibbutz members who had been called up. During and in the aftermath of the Six-Day War, he worked as a driver and translator for theIsrael Defense Forces.[31] After the war, Judt's belief in the Zionist enterprise began to unravel.
In October 2003, in an article forThe New York Review of Books, Judt argued that Israel was on its way to becoming a "belligerently intolerant, faith-driven ethno-state." He called for the conversion of "Israel from a Jewish state to abinational one" that would include all of what is now Israel, Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank. This proposed new state would have equal rights for all Jews andArabs living in Israel and thePalestinian territories.[32] The article, which presented a view of Middle Eastern history and politics that had rarely been given exposure in the mainstream media in the U.S., generated an explosive response, positive as well as negative. It drew strong criticism from pro-Israeli writers who saw such a plan as "destroying" Israel and replacing it with a predominantly Palestinian state governed by a Palestinian majority.[33][34] TheNYRB was inundated with over a thousand letters within a week of its publication, peppered with terms like "antisemite" and "self-hating Jew", and the article led to Judt's removal from theeditorial board ofThe New Republic.[35] In April 2004 Judt gave a public speech at Columbia University in which he further developed his views.[36]
In March 2006, Judt wrote an op-ed piece forThe New York Times about theJohn Mearsheimer andStephen Walt paper "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy". Judt argued that "[in] spite of [the paper's] provocative title, the essay draws on a wide variety of standard sources and is mostly uncontentious [.... Does] the Israel Lobby affect our foreign policy choices? Of course—that is one of its goals [...]. But does pressure to support Israel distort American decisions? That's a matter of judgment." He summed up his assessment of Mearsheimer and Walt's paper by asserting that "this essay, by two 'realist' political scientists with no interest whatsoever in the Palestinians, is a straw in the wind." He predicted that "it will not be self-evident to future generations of Americans why the imperial might and international reputation of the United States are so closely aligned with one small, controversial Mediterranean client state."[37]
In May 2006, Judt continued in a similar vein with a feature-length article, "The Country That Wouldn't Grow Up", for the Israeli newspaperHaaretz. The article, published the day beforeIsraeli Independence Day, recaps Israel's short history, describing what Judt saw as a steady decline in Israel's credibility that began with the Six-Day War in 1967.[38]
On 4 October 2006, Judt's scheduled New York talk before the organisationNetwork 20/20 was abruptly cancelled after Polish Consul Krzysztof Kasprzyk suddenly withdrew his offer of a venue following phone calls from theAnti-Defamation League and theAmerican Jewish Committee. The consul later told a reporter, "I don't have to subscribe to theFirst Amendment."[39] According toThe New York Sun, "the appearance at the Polish consulate was canceled after the Polish government decided that Mr. Judt's views critical of Israel were not consistent with Poland's friendly relations with the Jewish state."[40]
According toThe Washington Post, the ADL and AJC had complained to the Polish consul that Judt was "too critical of Israel and American Jewry", though both organisations deny asking that the talk be cancelled. ADL National ChairmanAbraham Foxman called Judt's claims of interference "wild conspiracy theories." Kasprzyk toldThe Washington Post that "the phone calls were very elegant but may be interpreted as exercising a delicate pressure. That's obvious—we are adults and our IQs are high enough to understand that." Judt, who had planned to argue that the Israel lobby in the U.S. often stifled honest debate, called the implications of the cancellation "serious and frightening." He added that "only in America—not in Israel—is this a problem", charging that vigorous criticism of Israeli policy, acceptable in Israel itself, is taboo in the U.S. Of the ADL and AJC, he said, "These are Jewish organizations that believe they should keep people who disagree with them on the Middle East away from anyone who might listen."[41]
The cancellation evoked protest from a roster of academics and intellectuals who said there had been an attempt to intimidate and shut down free debate.[42]Mark Lilla andRichard Sennett wrote a letter to Foxman in protest, which was signed by 114 people and published inThe New York Review of Books.[43] In a later exchange on the subject inThe New York Review of Books, Lilla and Sennet argued, "Even without knowing the substance of those 'nice' calls from the ADL and AJC, any impartial observer will recognize them as not so subtle forms of pressure."[44]
The ADL and AJC defended their decision to contact the Polish consulate and rejected Judt's characterisation of them. Foxman accused his critics of themselves stifling free speech when "they use inflammatory words like 'threaten,' 'pressure,' and 'intimidate' that bear no resemblance to what actually transpired." He wrote that the "ADL did not threaten or intimidate or pressure anyone. The Polish consul general made his decision concerning Tony Judt's appearance strictly on his own." Foxman said that Judt had "taken the position that Israel shouldn't exist [and t]hat puts him on our radar", while AJC executive director David A. Harris said that he wanted to tell the consulate that the thrust of Judt's talk ran "contrary to the entire spirit of Polish foreign policy".[40]
In a March 2007 interview, Judt argued the American need to blockcriticism of Israel stemmed from the rise ofidentity politics in the U.S. "I didn't think I knew until then just how deep and how uniquely American this obsession with blocking any criticism of Israel is. It is uniquely American." He added ruefully: "Apparently, the line you take on Israel trumps everything else in life".[45]
Asked during an interview withNPR shortly before his death about his taste for controversy, Judt said, "I've only ever published four little essays in a lifetime of book writing and lecturing and teaching, just four little essays which touched controversially on painful bits of other people's anatomies, so to speak. Two of them were about Israel".[8]
Judt's peers praised him for his wide-ranging knowledge and versatility in historical analysis.Jonathan Freedland wrote inNYRB, "There are not many professors in any field equipped to produce, for example, learned essays on the novels ofPrimo Levi and the writings of the now forgottenManès Sperber—yet also able to turn their hand to, say, a close, diplomatic analysis of theCuban missile crisis of 1962."[46] Freedland added that Judt had demonstrated "through more than a decade of essays written for America's foremost journals... that he belongs to each one of those rare, polymathic categories."[46] In reviewing Judt'sReappraisals: Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century, Freedland wrote that Judt had put conscience ahead of friendship during his life and demanded the same courage in others.
In 2009, Judt received a SpecialOrwell Prize for Lifetime Achievement for his contribution to British political writing.[47]
Some of his peers had a more critical view of Judt.Dylan Riley of the University of California, Berkeley, argued that Judt was more of a pamphleteer and a polemicist than a historian, and that he changed his views without hesitation or good reason.[48]
In 2007 Judt received theHannah Arendt Prize for Political Thought (German:Hannah-Arendt-Preis für politisches Denken), a prize awarded to individuals representing the tradition of political theoristHannah Arendt, especially in regard to totalitarianism. It was instituted by the German Heinrich Böll Foundation (affiliated with the Alliance '90/The Greens) and the government of Bremen in 1994, and is awarded by an international jury.
In September 2008, Judt was diagnosed withamyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). From October 2009, he was paralysed from the neck down. He was nevertheless able to give a two-hour public lecture.[49] In January 2010, Judt wrote a short article about his condition, the first of a series of memoirs published inThe New York Review of Books.[50] In March 2010, Judt was interviewed byTerry Gross on NPR'sFresh Air,[8][51] and in June he was interviewed by the BBC's disability affairs correspondentPeter White for theRadio 4 programmeNo Triumph, No Tragedy.[52]
Judt died of ALS at his home in Manhattan on 6 August 2010.[53] This was two weeks after a major interview and retrospective of his work inProspect magazine[54] and the day before an article about his illness was published in theIrish Independent indicating that he "won't surrender anytime soon" and comparing his suffering to that of authorTerry Pratchett, who was diagnosed with early-onsetAlzheimer's disease in 2007.[55] Shortly before his death, according toThe Guardian, he was said to have possessed the "liveliest mind in New York."[56] He continued his work as a public intellectual right up until his death, writing essays forThe New York Review of Books[56] and composing and completing a synthetic intellectual history,Thinking the Twentieth Century, with fellow historianTimothy D. Snyder.[57][58] Judt also wrote a memoir,The Memory Chalet, published posthumously in November 2010.[59] During his illness, Judt made use of thememory palace technique to remember paragraphs of text during the night, which he placed mentally in rooms of aSwiss chalet and then dictated to his assistant the next day.[8][49]
After Judt's death,Time called him "a historian of the very first order, a public intellectual of an old-fashioned kind and—in more ways than one—a very brave man".[60] He was also praised for carrying out what he called the historian's task: "to tell what is almost always an uncomfortable story and explain why the discomfort is part of the truth we need to live well and live properly. A well-organised society is one in which we know the truth about ourselves collectively, not one in which we tell pleasant lies about ourselves". Mark Levine, a professor of history at theUniversity of California at Irvine, said that Judt's "writings on European history and the need for a new social contract between rulers and ruled can inspire a new generation of scholars and activists in other cultures".[30] In his obituary inThe New York Review of Books,Timothy Garton Ash placed Judt in "the great tradition of thespectateur engagé, the politically engaged but independent and critical intellectual."[61]
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Judt offers his solution to the crisis of what he calls the past two 'lost decades,' in which 'fantasies of prosperity and limitless personal advancement displaced all talk of political liberation, social justice or collective action': a revival of the ideals of social democracy that brought stability and prosperity to a devastated Europe and security to generations of Americans who benefited from such public programs as Social Security and Medicare. Judt's passionate appeal for a return to social-democratic ideals....(subscription required)
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