Tony Judt

There's a lot to dislike about Tony Judt - the weird paranoia at every aspect of Israel, the dogmatic loyalty to a vision of social democracy that was discredited over thirty years ago, the insistence that anybody who once supported the Iraq War is as morally culpable as fellow travelers who defended Stalin. But there are also a lot of attributes that still make him worth reading: the insistence that the crimes of the Soviets be condemned unequivocally, the unbelievably deep knowledge of intellectual history, and the championing of now-forgotten heroes like Raymond Aron and Leon Blum. Judt's worldview may be too narrow and Manichean, but he is a real thinker unafraid of going against whatever trend is most popular.

And whatever one thinks of Judt, it has to be focused by the knowledge that he is dying. Having been diagnosed with ALS two years ago, the disease has ravaged him with terrifying swiftness. Whoever he was before his illness, he is meeting his end with incredible bravery, and has released a SERIES of short pieces in the New York Review of Books that are truly moving. Not many writers can document their final years with this sort of wisdom.