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Product Description
'Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay' - Oliver Goldsmith
Something has gone profoundly amiss in our public affairs over the past thirty years. In the West we are wealthy and secure enough to allow ourselves to drift very far off course before anything has to be done. But we have forgotten how to think about the life we live together: its goals and purposes. Not only are we post-ideological; we have become post-ethical. When we ask ourselves whether a particular policy objective should be pursued - universal healthcare or investment in public transportation - we know only how to inquire about its efficiency: its profitability or cost, its impact upon growth and the National Product, its implications for taxation. We have lost touch with the old questions that have defined politics since the Greeks: is it good? Is it fair? Is it just? Is it right? Will it help bring about a better society? A better world? The US and UK today are more unequal - in incomes, wealth, health, education, life chances - than at any time since 1914. Is this desirable? Is it prudent? Those used to be the political questions, even if they invited no easy answers. Until we have learned - or re-learned - how to pose them, we shall go on as before. Can we go on 'like this'? Yes. Should we? No.
If we are to replace fear with confidence then we need a different story to tell, about state and society alike: a story that carries moral and political conviction. Providing that story is the purpose of this book.
About the Author
Tony Judt is the Erich Maria Remarque Professor in European Studies at New York University. In 1996 he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 2007 a corresponding Fellow of the British Academy. In 2009 Judt was awarded a Special Orwell Prize for Lifetime Achievement for his contribution to British Political writing. Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 (2005) was a runner up for the 2006 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction and Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
67 of 70 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is a stunning essay by one of our best historians on how far western societies have fallen in the last 30 years in the pursuit of efficiency. Doom and gloom books are ten a penny these days - full of ecological disasters, commercial greed, academic simpletons and political pygmies. Prescriptions are rather more rare (Will Hutton and David Korton are exceptions). Probably only a historian can give us this sort of perspective on how the model of "social democracy" which seemed to have emerged a stunning victor in the ideological struggle of the 20th century so quickly was consigned, in its turn, to the waste basket. And with what catastrophic results. Of course, we have heard the story of neo-liberalism and its legacy many times before. But, generally, from journalists, economists or campaigners in a fairly strident manner. Judt suggests the story is a bit more complicated - with the new left having to shoulder considerable blame for its stress in the 1960s on "rights". "However legitimate the claims of individuals and the importance of their rights, emphasising these carries an unavoidable cost; the decline of a shared sense of purpose" Gated communities are the result. The book's language is simple to the point of elegance - probably because his debilitating illness required it to be transcribed from his spoken word. But the words (and chapter headings and sub-headings) reflect the vast range of his reading and knowledge. This is a very rare book in which a highly intelligent and sensitive historian takes stock of what he has learned in his life - in an effort to give the younger generation both a memory and some hope.
I was initially disappointed at the smallness of the book - but its contents and message and the format given to it by the publisher make it a book to treasure and consult for a long time to come
I was initially disappointed at the smallness of the book - but its contents and message and the format given to it by the publisher make it a book to treasure and consult for a long time to come
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is quite simply the best single book that anyone who is trying to understand what is going on in our present troubled times should read. It is a book which soars far above the petty squabbles of our career seeking and venal politicians and shows how the long term tide of history both limits what can be done for the human condition and shows what each of us could do to get politicians to think about something other than the next election.
Poignantly the book was written, or rather dictated, as Tony Judt was dying of motor neurone disease. In a final effort of will he distilled his immense historical knowledge into a short book where each page reminds us of the scars of the past and how easy it is to fall into the same traps into which our parents and grandparents fell.
It has often been said that 'happy is the country which has no history' we should perhaps add 'happier is the country which remembers its history - and learns from a great historian'.
Poignantly the book was written, or rather dictated, as Tony Judt was dying of motor neurone disease. In a final effort of will he distilled his immense historical knowledge into a short book where each page reminds us of the scars of the past and how easy it is to fall into the same traps into which our parents and grandparents fell.
It has often been said that 'happy is the country which has no history' we should perhaps add 'happier is the country which remembers its history - and learns from a great historian'.
25 of 26 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Tony Judt, one of our leading historians of modern Europe, has written his political testament (sadly, he is dying of an incurable disease). He dissects the attacks on social democracy, focussing on the USA and UK, but also bringing to bear his wide knowledge of Europe. His analysis reminds us of the enormous successes of social democracy, from the New Deal to the welfare state,that have lifted numbers of the less well-off out of misery and deprivation. He reminds us what we have lost in the last twenty years in our heedless pusuit of material wealth, and how that has led to the discontents he describes. Tony Judt writes clearly, applying his range of learning to illuminate, not dazzle. Anyone who is worried about the social and political situation we find ourselves in will benefit from reading this short but important book.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
A brillant book to rethink the Left
What a brillant book about politics, the meaning and conditions of democracy and simply, what means now to have "left wing"opinions ! Read more
Published 9 months ago by Carole
In Praise of Collectivity
Subtitled `A Treatise on Our Present Discontents', the name of the late Tony Judt's last book is derived from Oliver Goldsmith's 1770 work, `The Deserted Village'. Read more
Published 13 months ago by Nicholas Casley
A FLAWED ANALYSIS OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY'S FAILINGS
Like The Memory Chalet, this book is written in the shadow of an illness which was soon to kill the author.
In it, Tony Judt sets out to defend social democracy. Read more
In it, Tony Judt sets out to defend social democracy. Read more
Published 14 months ago by J. Scott
Have we have forgotten how to change things
This is an outstanding book from an outstanding historian with a conscience. Judt puts his finger on all the factors that make for a civil society that cohere's while noting that... Read more
Published 15 months ago by A. Grant
Good -- but -- It is far too generalised.
Tony Judt's book is a call for a saner, more balanced world, in which the Dollar/Pound/Yen is not the only motivation. Read more
Published 16 months ago by Red Eyes
A refreshing insight into the less-than-obvious.
One reviewer calls this book "a well-intentioned compilation of the obvious". I think the beauty of the book is that it lifts the shroud which clouds our vision of our times and... Read more
Published 16 months ago by Poadster
Compulsory Reading
Well written, accessible and a great contribution to the developing critique of society and the western world and its values in 2010. Read more
Published 20 months ago by janette44
An attempted defense of social democracy
This is about half of a useful book. Tony Judt does a good job of identifying the central problems of our moral and social lives - anxious materialism, hyper-individualism,... Read more
Published 22 months ago by Paul Bowes
service
A most interesting analysis not only of the mess we are all in but possibly how to get out of it.
Published on 20 May 2010
A worthwhile essay
This book is really a long essay - it can be read in an afternoon. Due to the author's infirmity, it was dictated rather than written, which may contribute to its rather meditative... Read more
Published on 30 April 2010 by C. P. Smith
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