Hipster Mag Defends Tony Judt, Sort Of

"You would be forgiven, upon reading the panoply of negative reviews of Tony Judt's Reappraisals, for thinking that Judt's latest book was a book-length screed, a Kassam rocket of scorn and derision directed at the state of Israel. Imagine your surprise when on cracking the spine of Reappraisals you find all of three essays, out of twenty-four, dedicated to Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—one of which is primarily about the life and work of Edward Said, himself neither exclusively nor principally concerned with Israel. The gap between the perceived and actual subjects of Judt's work is startling. In fact the book deals mostly with the shameful intellectual history of European Communism, western and eastern versions. It expresses Judt's desire to form a new leftist canon purged of communist influences, yearnings, and ideas." (N+1)