Tony Judt's The Memory Chalet

The London-born historian Tony Judt died at his home in New York on August 6th 2010, aged 62. He has left us a collection of memories, dictated as he lay dying from Lou Gehrig’s disease, most of which first appeared in The New York Review of Books. Beautifully written and imbued with nostalgia, humility and wisdom, they provide insights into Judt’s likes and dislikes. He admired Clement Atlee, Edwardian reformers, trains, East European dissidents, Switzerland and people from the margins (‘the edge people’); his dislikes included George Bush Jr., unregulated commerce, post-modernism, and all forms of identity politics, including patriotism, and especially Zionism.
Read the rest of my review on the website of  History Today.

Historian Tony Judt: 1948-2010