My history writing was based on what I saw in strange, exotic places rather than just reading books. — Tony Judt Copy Share Image
Unlike memory, which confirms and reinforces itself, history contributes to the disenchantment of the world. — Tony Judt Copy Share Image
You don't have to be Jewish to understand the history of Europe in the 20th century, but it helps. — Tony Judt Copy Share Image
History can show you that it was one pile of bad stuff after another. It can also show you that there's been… — Tony Judt Copy Share Image
I started work on my first French history book in 1969; on 'Socialism in Provence' in 1974; and on the essays in… — Tony Judt Copy Share Image
There were various different keys in which European history had tended to be written. One is the lyrical key, the idea that… — Tony Judt Copy Share Image
I see myself as, first and above all, a teacher of history; next, a writer of European history; next, a commentator on… — Tony Judt Copy Share Image
“Forgetting, I would even go so far as to say historical error, is a crucial factor in the creation of a nation;… — Tony Judt Copy Share Image
I don't believe in an afterlife. I don't believe in a single or multiple godhead. I respect people who do, but I don't believe… — Tony Judt Copy Share
“Markets do not automatically generate trust, cooperation or collective action for the common good. Quite the contrary: it is in the nature of economic… — Tony Judt Copy Share
“ Lieux de memoire . . . 'exist because there are no longer any milieux de memoire , settings in which memory is a… — Tony Judt Copy Share
“Keynes died in 1946, exhausted by his wartime efforts. But he had long since demonstrated that neither capitalism nor liberalism would survive very long… — Tony Judt Copy Share
The Second World War had a precipitating effect in that it discredited the empires, as well as bankrupting them. Not only could you no… — Tony Judt Copy Share
“That the state might exceed its remit and damage the market by distorting its operations was not taken very seriously in these years.” — Tony Judt Copy Share
“Whatever their other differences, French Gaullists, Christian Democrats and Socialists shared a common faith in the activist state, economic planning and large-scale public investment.… — Tony Judt Copy Share
I think if I'm controversial it's not because I set out to be. It's because I've never felt comfortable being part of someone else's… — Tony Judt Copy Share
“This reduction of 'society' to a thin membrane of interactions between private individuals is presented today as the ambition of libertarians and free marketeers.… — Tony Judt Copy Share
“Something is profoundly wrong with the way we live today. For thirty years we have made a virtue out of the pursuit of material… — Tony Judt Copy Share
We have responsibilities for others, not just across space but across time. We have responsibilities to people who came before us. They left us… — Tony Judt Copy Share
“What did trust, cooperation, progressive taxation and the interventionist state bequeath to western societies in the decades following 1945? The short answer is, in… — Tony Judt Copy Share
Healthcare reform is a paradigmatic case. It is self-evidently necessary and inevitable and has been on the agenda for 35 years, and the political… — Tony Judt Copy Share
