Thinking the Twentieth Century
  • Published: 2 April 2013
  • ISBN: 9780099563556
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 432
  • RRP: $45.00

Thinking the Twentieth Century

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7 Feb 2013
Paperback
2 Apr 2013
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The final masterpiece by one of the leading historians and thinkers of his generation, the late Tony Judt.

Thinking the Twentieth Century unites the conflicted intellectual history of an epoch into a soaring narrative.

Two explorers set out on a journey from which only one of them will return. Their unknown land is that often fearsome continent we call the 20th Century. Their route is through their own minds and memories. Both travellers are professional historians still tormented by their own unanswered questions. They needed to talk to one another, and the time was short.

This is a book about the past, but it is also an argument for the kind of future we should strive for. Thinking the Twentieth Century is about the life of the mind - and the mindful life.
  • Published: 2 April 2013
  • ISBN: 9780099563556
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 432
  • RRP: $45.00
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About the authors

Tony Judt

Date: 2005-02-17
Professor Tony Judt was a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement, the New Republic, the New York Times and many other journals in Europe and the US. His books include Ill Fares the Land, Reappraisals: Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century, and Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945, which was one of the New York Times Book Review's Ten Best Books of 2005, the winner of the Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Book Award, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He died in August, 2010 at the age of 62.

At the time of his death, Tony Judt was the Erich Maria Remarque Professor in European Studies at New York University. In 1996 he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 2007 a corresponding Fellow of the British Academy. In 2009 Judt was awarded a Special Orwell Prize for Lifetime Achievement for his contribution to British Political writing. Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 (2005) was a runner up for the 2006 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction and Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction.

Timothy Snyder

Timothy Snyder is Levin Professor of History at Yale University and the author of a number of critically acclaimed books including The Road to Unfreedom and most recently On Tyranny which was an international bestseller.

His previous books include Black Earth, which was longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize and won the annual prize of the Dutch Auschwitz Committee; and Bloodlands, which won the Hannah Arendt Prize, the Leipzig Book Prize for European Understanding, the Ralph Waldo Emerson Award in the Humanities and the literature award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

He lives in New Haven, Connecticut.

Praise for Thinking the Twentieth Century

Timothy Snyder's initiative has prompted a sparkling dialogue which, through following the stages of Tony Judt's life and emergence as an exceptional historian, offers important reflections on major currents of political thinking in the 20th century

Ian Kershaw

There is much brilliance here to enjoy ... The best kind of book

David Aaronovitch, The Times

Brilliant to the bitter end...Tony Judt was combative and razor-sharp even as he was dying...A moving, enlightening and provocative read...It is impossible not to marvel at the dying man's extraordinary mental recall and moral integrity ... This book, bristling with learning, is a staggering achievement

Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times

Thinking the Twentieth Century is a substantial achievement

Tony Barber, Financial Times

Brilliantly eloquent

Neil Ascherson, Guardian

A treasure trove of ideas and insights...An extraordinarily learned, lively and wide-ranging discussion of 20th century European intellectual history...genuinely exciting

Andrew Neather, Evening Standard

How, you keep asking yourself, could one man remember all this narrative detail, these abstruse references, these verbatim quotations?…Valiant book…Read it and weep that there shall be no more

Christopher Bray, Observer

Reading as one very long yet sophisticated conversation between friends, the final result is something quite astounding and will cement Judt as one of the most formidable intellects in history

The Big Issue North

A fascinating dialogue… What shines through is as much their deep wisdom as their tough-minded intellectual integrity

Steve Barfield, The Lady

Breathtakingly broad overview of Europe's past and present... This book is an absolute treasure – and an education in itself

Boyd Tonkin, Independent

Stimulating, provocative, and consistently absorbing, this is an intellectual history that manages to be both accessible and challenging... Thinking the Twentieth Century is a treasure trove of fascinating concepts and arguments

Stephen Joyce, Nudge

Informative, personal and stimulating… Eloquently written and thoughtful, the book also provides a persuasive argument for the kind of future we should strive for

Good Book Guide