0
    • Elementary Secondary Higher Ed Common Reads
    0 0
    Download high-resolution image

    Reappraisals

    Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century

    Author Tony Judt
    Ebook
    Penguin Adult HC/TR | Penguin Books
    On sale Apr 17, 2008 | 464 Pages | 9781440634550
    Add to cart Add to list Exam Copies

    See Additional Formats
    “Exhilarating . . . brave and forthright.” —The New York Times Book Review

    “Perhaps the greatest single collection of thinking on the political, diplomatic, social, and cultural history of the past century.” —Forbes

    We have entered an age of forgetting. Our world, we insist, is unprecedented, wholly new. The past has nothing to teach us. Drawing provocative connections between a dazzling range of subjects, from Jewish intellectuals and the challenge of evil in the recent European past to the interpretation of the Cold War and the displacement of history by heritage, the late historian Tony Judt takes us beyond what we think we know of the past to explain how we came to know it, showing how much of our history has been sacrificed in the triumph of myth—making over understanding and denial over memory. Reappraisals offers a much-needed road map back to the historical sense we urgently need.

    Judt's book, Ill Fares the Land, republished in 2021 featuring a new preface by bestselling author of Between the World and Me and The Water Dancer, Ta-Nehisi Coates.
    ReappraisalsAcknowledgments

    Introduction: The World We Have Lost

    Part One: The Heart of Darkness

    Chapter I: Arthur Koestler, the Exemplary Intellectual
    Chapter II: The Elementary Truths of Primo Levi
    Chapter III: The Jewish Europe of Manes Sperber
    Chapter IV: Hannah Arendt and Evil

    Part Two: The Politics of Intellectual Engagement

    Chapter V: Albert Camus: "The best man in France"
    Chapter VI: Elucubrations: The "Marxism" of Louis Althusser
    Chapter VII: Eric Hobsbawm and the Romance of Communism
    Chapter VIII: Goodbye to All That? Leszek Kotakowski and the Marxist Legacy
    Chapter IX: A "Pope of Ideas"? John Paul II and the Modern World
    Chapter X: Edward Said: The Rootless Cosmopolitan

    Part Three: Lost in Transition: Places and Memories

    Chapter XI: The Catastrophe: The Fall of France, 1940
    Chapter XII: A la recherche du temps perdu: France and Its Pasts
    Chapter XIII: The Gnome in the Garden: Tony Blair and Britain's "Heritage"
    Chapter XIV: The Stateless State: Why Belgium Matters
    Chapter XV: Romania between History and Europe
    Chapter XVI: Dark Victory: Israel's Six-Day War
    Chapter XVII: The Country That Wouldn't Grow Up

    Part Four: The American (Half-) Century

    Chapter XVIII: An American Tragedy? The Case of Whittaker Chambers
    Chapter XIX: The Crisis: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Cuba
    Chapter XX: The Illusionist: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy
    Chapter XXI: Whose Story Is It? The Cold War in Retrospect
    Chapter XXII: The Silence of the Lambs: On the Strange Death of Liberal America
    Chapter XXIII: The Good Society: Europe vs. America

    Envoi: The Social Question Redivivus

    Publication Credits
    Index

    © John R. Rifkin

    Tony Judt (1948-2010) was educated at King’s College, Cambridge, and l’École Normale Supérieure, Paris, and taught at Cambridge, Oxford, and Berkeley. He was the Erich Maria Remarque Professor of European Studies at New University and the director of the Remarque Institute, which he founded in 1995. Among other books, Judt was the author of Thinking the Twentieth Century, The Memory Chalet, When the Facts Change (edited by Jennifer Homans), Reappraisals, and Postwar, which was one of The New York Times Book Review’s 10 Best Books of 2005 and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

    View titles by Tony Judt
    "Exhilarating . . . brave and forthright."
    -The New York Times Book Review

    "Perhaps the greatest single collection of thinking on the political, diplomatic, social, and cultural history of the past century."
    -Forbes

    "By turns fascinating [and] edifying . . . Judt is one of our foremost historians of Europe, an elegant writer and subtle thinker."
    -Los Angeles Times

    About

    “Exhilarating . . . brave and forthright.” —The New York Times Book Review

    “Perhaps the greatest single collection of thinking on the political, diplomatic, social, and cultural history of the past century.” —Forbes

    We have entered an age of forgetting. Our world, we insist, is unprecedented, wholly new. The past has nothing to teach us. Drawing provocative connections between a dazzling range of subjects, from Jewish intellectuals and the challenge of evil in the recent European past to the interpretation of the Cold War and the displacement of history by heritage, the late historian Tony Judt takes us beyond what we think we know of the past to explain how we came to know it, showing how much of our history has been sacrificed in the triumph of myth—making over understanding and denial over memory. Reappraisals offers a much-needed road map back to the historical sense we urgently need.

    Judt's book, Ill Fares the Land, republished in 2021 featuring a new preface by bestselling author of Between the World and Me and The Water Dancer, Ta-Nehisi Coates.

    Table of Contents

    ReappraisalsAcknowledgments

    Introduction: The World We Have Lost

    Part One: The Heart of Darkness

    Chapter I: Arthur Koestler, the Exemplary Intellectual
    Chapter II: The Elementary Truths of Primo Levi
    Chapter III: The Jewish Europe of Manes Sperber
    Chapter IV: Hannah Arendt and Evil

    Part Two: The Politics of Intellectual Engagement

    Chapter V: Albert Camus: "The best man in France"
    Chapter VI: Elucubrations: The "Marxism" of Louis Althusser
    Chapter VII: Eric Hobsbawm and the Romance of Communism
    Chapter VIII: Goodbye to All That? Leszek Kotakowski and the Marxist Legacy
    Chapter IX: A "Pope of Ideas"? John Paul II and the Modern World
    Chapter X: Edward Said: The Rootless Cosmopolitan

    Part Three: Lost in Transition: Places and Memories

    Chapter XI: The Catastrophe: The Fall of France, 1940
    Chapter XII: A la recherche du temps perdu: France and Its Pasts
    Chapter XIII: The Gnome in the Garden: Tony Blair and Britain's "Heritage"
    Chapter XIV: The Stateless State: Why Belgium Matters
    Chapter XV: Romania between History and Europe
    Chapter XVI: Dark Victory: Israel's Six-Day War
    Chapter XVII: The Country That Wouldn't Grow Up

    Part Four: The American (Half-) Century

    Chapter XVIII: An American Tragedy? The Case of Whittaker Chambers
    Chapter XIX: The Crisis: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Cuba
    Chapter XX: The Illusionist: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy
    Chapter XXI: Whose Story Is It? The Cold War in Retrospect
    Chapter XXII: The Silence of the Lambs: On the Strange Death of Liberal America
    Chapter XXIII: The Good Society: Europe vs. America

    Envoi: The Social Question Redivivus

    Publication Credits
    Index

    Author

    © John R. Rifkin

    Tony Judt (1948-2010) was educated at King’s College, Cambridge, and l’École Normale Supérieure, Paris, and taught at Cambridge, Oxford, and Berkeley. He was the Erich Maria Remarque Professor of European Studies at New University and the director of the Remarque Institute, which he founded in 1995. Among other books, Judt was the author of Thinking the Twentieth Century, The Memory Chalet, When the Facts Change (edited by Jennifer Homans), Reappraisals, and Postwar, which was one of The New York Times Book Review’s 10 Best Books of 2005 and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

    View titles by Tony Judt

    Praise

    "Exhilarating . . . brave and forthright."
    -The New York Times Book Review

    "Perhaps the greatest single collection of thinking on the political, diplomatic, social, and cultural history of the past century."
    -Forbes

    "By turns fascinating [and] edifying . . . Judt is one of our foremost historians of Europe, an elegant writer and subtle thinker."
    -Los Angeles Times

    Additional formats

    • Reappraisals
      Reappraisals
      Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century
      Tony Judt
      9780143115052
      $32.00 US
      Paperback
      Penguin Books
      Mar 31, 2009
    • Reappraisals
      Reappraisals
      Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century
      Tony Judt
      9780143115052
      $32.00 US
      Paperback
      Penguin Books
      Mar 31, 2009

    Other Books by this Author

    Related Articles

    Books for Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month Book Covers: Cowboys and East Indians 9798217006892 Advocate 9781984862495 THE EMPEROR OF GLADNESS 9780593831878 IT RHYMES WITH TAKEI 9781603095747
    General

    Books for Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month

    Each May, we honor the stories, histories, and cultures of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders. Below is a selection of acclaimed fiction and nonfiction books by AANHPI creators to share with your students this month and throughout the year. Find our full collection of titles for Higher Education here.

    Read more

    Books for Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month

    General
    Subscribe

    Penguin Random House Higher Education

    © 2026 Penguin Random House

    Back to Top
    0
    Wish List (0)