Reappraisals - Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century (Tony Judt, 2008)

I signed out this book solely because I thought Judt did such a fantastic job with Postwar, summarized here.  This isn't a book per se, it's a compilation of various articles that he published in various periodicals between 1996 and 2004.  Like Postwar, this is full of interesting ideas - and focused on recent history, an area I have read so little about (unfortunately).

Highly recommended. 

(It would be interesting to see what Judt has to say in 2012 as the European welfare state breaks down - at the time these pieces were written, he was pretty adamant about the success of the European project, how it is a superior model to the U.S., etc.)

Things I noted:

1.  He thinks America is the only advanced country that glorifies the military; notes how we tend to put down the Euros for their de-emphasis on military.  Points out that the contrasting attitudes probably are based mostly on recent histories - Europe constantly devastated, America triumphant and un-invaded.

2.  Why Marxism was attractive to so many, and why it wasn't irrational for so many to find it attractive.  But he makes no apologies for those who hung on after its shortcomings were obvious (Sartre, for example).   How intellectuals tried to prop up Marx by going to his early writings - Louis Althusser - who wrote a book I had in a 1970s "Marxism" class about young Lenin - Judt explains why this was pretty ridiculous.

3.  Why it is a mistake to view "terrorism" as a post-Cold War phenomenon; the huge policy error of converting this to a state of world-wide war with radical Islam.

4.  He profiles various writers/intellectuals of the 20th century - most of who were just names to me until going through these articles.  (OK, they're not much more than just names at this point to me anyway.)  Hannah Arendt.  Albert Camus.

5.  As in Postwar, he goes through analyses of various countries.  France - preserving its history.  Romania - Bucharest closer to Istanbul than any central European capital. 

6. Interesting discussion of how the six-day war (1967) backfired on Israel in so many ways.  A small underdog with European Jews and a European mindset (kibbutzim); now a military power with a whole new set of issues.

7.  Interesting commentary on Nixon and Kissinger - how the two of them went off on their own, excluded State, etc.