“Elio Vittorini observed in 1957 that ever since Napoleon, France had proved impermeable to any foreign influence except German philosophy: and that was still true two decades later... By the time German philosophy had passed through Parisian social thought into… — Tony Judt Copy Share Image
“Once upon a time, one looked to society -- or class, or community -- for one's normative vocabulary: what was good for everyone was by definition good for anyone. But the converse does not hold. What is good for one… — 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 Image
“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 Image
“ Lieux de memoire . . . 'exist because there are no longer any milieux de memoire , settings in which memory is a… — Tony Judt Copy Share Image
“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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image