Thinking the Twentieth Century (Tony Judt (with Timothy Snyder), 2010)

I've found Tony Judt immensely helpful in thinking about the 20th century - especially this book, but also this one though to a lesser extent.  I was interested in this - his final book - for two additional reasons.  First - he was collaborating with Timothy Snyder, author of Bloodlands (in queue but not read).  Second - this was written as Judt died of ALS - a pretty compelling circumstance in which to leave behind some thoughts; there was a very interesting NYT story about this, and I was particularly interested due to the Claude Lanners situation.

And I would recommend reading this book - I'd just stop before getting to the final chapter.

Judt is always a bit challenging for me - and useful - because he comes from Marxist, leftist, big government, faith in postwar social democracy background - different than my usual sources and inclinations.  But he's smart, not so dogmatic, always interesting (until that last chapter - but maybe that was Snyder's fault?)

This book goes through interesting discussion of his Jewish background - days in London - then active with Zionists until disillusioned.  Stefan Zweig as not representative of Jews outside big city Vienna - vast swathes of lesser educated countryside Jews in eastern European - very different in the pecking order depending on point of origin.  The Habsburg empire - not a bad thing for Jews.

He discusses his Marxist phase - why it was seductive, how hard it was for folks to let go.  That it had a significant religious component - end time, eschatology.

Sees Israel like the small nationalist states formed after WWI - vulnerable, insecure, identity wrapped up in some notion of ethnicity and self-determination.  A tough way to operate.

Fascism - interesting idea, probably not novel at all but it was to me - that this thrived in large part because of the fear of communism.  Which was a legitimate fear after WWI.  Fascism as lacking pretty much any intellectual framework (coherent or otherwise) - it did present itself as the chance to preserve order in the face of disorder.

At the end of the book - it's what it might be like sitting in the faculty lounge at Yale (where Snyder probably hangs around) - an echo chamber where insignificant little George W. Bush is responsible for all evils, corporate profits are bad, blah, blah, blah.

Judt does have a wonderful discussion about the difficulties of writing something useful - challenging writings will necessarily have a limited audience - says if he writes for New York Times Magazine, it "would be edited and distilled and reduced into acceptable midstream generalities."  A separate aspect I can relate to even in my little world:  "Obviously this is the condition of most people who write:  throwing a letter into the ocean in the forlorn hope that it will be picked up."  We write for ourselves in so many instances.

But how about this howler (from Snyder):  "The state that is responsible for health care is better (as we know) than the private sector at keeping costs down.  And because the state is thinking about long-term budgets rather than quarterly profits, the best way to keep costs down is to keep people healthy.  So where there is public health care there is intense attention to prevention."  Does Snyder really believe this?  If he's so careless to accept this, should I bother reading Bloodlands?  He sounds frighteningly like our president, especially with that dismissive "as we know" line.

Another one from Snyder:  "Amtrak is another example:  a kind of zombie train system which is kept lurching along [by Republicans] to demonstrate that public transportation is and must always be dysfunctional."  What??