Tony Judt

Edge People

On Intellectuals and Democracy

Intellectual activity is a little bit like seduction. If you go straight for your goal, you almost certainly won’t succeed.

Bring Back the Rails!

The Glory of the Rails

Captive Minds

Our contemporary faith in “the market” rigorously tracks its radical nineteenth-century doppelgänger—the unquestioning belief in necessity, progress, and History.

Knowledge vs. Pedantry

Meritocrats

Captive Minds, Then and Now

Some years ago I visited Krasnogruda, the restored manor house of Czeslaw Milosz, close by the Polish–Lithuanian frontier. I was the guest of Krzysztof Czyzewski, director of the Borderland Foundation, dedicated to acknowledging the conflicted memory of this region and reconciling the local populations. It was deep midwinter and there were snow-covered fields as far as the eye could see, with just the occasional clump of ice-bound trees and posts marking the national frontiers.

Words

Words

I was raised on words. They tumbled off the kitchen table onto the floor where I sat: grandfather, uncles, and refugees flung Russian, Polish, Yiddish, French, and what passed for English at one another in a competitive cascade of assertion and interrogation. Sententious flotsam from the Edwardian-era Socialist Party of Great Britain hung around our kitchen promoting the True Cause. I spent long, happy hours listening to Central European autodidacts arguing deep into the night: *Marxismus*, *Zionismus*, *Socialismus*. Talking, it seemed to me, was the point of adult existence. I have never lost that sense.

America, My New-Found-Land

Magic Mountains

Austerity

Toni

‘Edge People’

An Open Letter About ALS

Toni

I am reminded of the Avegael sisters whenever I ask myself—or am asked—what it means to be Jewish.

Work

What Happened in May 1968?

Girls! Girls! Girls!