The Legacy of Tony Judt

Public intellectual and Postwar European historian Tony Judt should be remembered for his consummate political stance: an ardent defense of the welfare state until his last moments. “Tony Judt began as an intellectual historian; he will be remembered by many as a bracing critic of Zionism, a vigorous proponent of European-style social democracy, and—tragically—a victim of ALS,” says Nikil Saval at n+1. “I have heard many describe as ‘moving’ his snatches of memoir, published at intervals in the New York Review of Books over the last year of his life. This is true—but what may have been even more moving was the extent to which he devoted his last days to making the case, which he had made many times before, for the welfare state.”