Week Fourteen: Reappraisals by Tony Judt

Week Fourteen: Reappraisals: Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century. Written by the late historian Tony Judt (he passed away a little while after I bought this book) and it has been sitting in the bedroom for a good 6 months or more waiting for me to read past the first chapter. I'm glad I did read it all the way through as it is a seriously good selection of essays and reviews by a great writer and amazing critic.

The forgotten part of the twentieth century is not so much the things that we forgot about as the things about those things we forget. I know that is convoluted, but in reality I had heard of much of the subjects of this book, save some of the early Jewish writers who were once communists like Arthur Koestler et al... But quickly the essays and reviews of other writers work turn to subjects I know much more about. The six day war, the Cuban missile crisis, the state of Belgium and more.

The power of this collection is in the judicious honesty that the writer employs and holds up as a mirror to the others he critiques and criticises. It is hard enough to review books (these don't count as real reviews, just a record of my readings - but I have also reviewed books back when I was reviewing games for Gaz) when you are learning the subject matter for the first time. Tony Judt, being the expert that he so obviously was, is unforgiving to those seeking to misrepresent or edit out history for their own views. Warts and all go into these reviews and essays and they find priase for villains and criticism for heroes, but he tells people and events for what they were.

In school I learned much about Israel, the six day war and the victory that stunned the world. I did not learn that prior to that Israelis and Arabs weren't as visceral as they are today. I did not know that some Arabs thought and continue to think that America defeated them in 6 days, not the Jews. I did not learn that the arrogance and invincibility complex grew from that. My high school education was very biased of course, but then again it was less that 20 years since the events and my textbooks were probably 5-10 years old already.

History is written by the winners, but as long as historians like this are reviewing the works in the middle term (so little can be learned in the short) then with the passage of time we can fire up the crucible of fact, sources, the long view and the distance of emotions and write it for real.

I enjoyed this book a lot and set myself a short goal to finish it, I only started on Wednesday. I was thoroughly engaged and educated not just in facts (as I now knew a lot of this thanks to Chomsky, Pilger, the Daily Show and even Fox News) but in a clear, well written and erudite presentation. I'm not ashamed to say I had to check a dictionary or Wikipedia almost every other chapter.

Next Week the polar opposite. Eat, Pray, Love.