"Judt never explained why postwar French thought and especially ’68-era theory “proved irresistibly appealing to a new generation.” Not without a certain charm, he was stubbornly out of touch with intellectual developments that “bored” him. One can understand what seemed to him so maddening, for instance, about Althusserian “theoretical practice.” By the same token, however, it was Judt’s failing not to understand why such a concept might appeal to some of us growing up in the shadow of the sixties and coming of age within the constricted political possibilities of the fin de siècle. To speak for myself, academic research, especially the intellectual history of France, has in part seemed worthwhile precisely because of the imaginative, unbound, and even critical possibilities such thinking affords. May 1968 and French theory are obviously not more important than the Prague Spring or the critique of fellow traveling, but Judt did a disservice to historical understanding through his consistent dismissal of the former. If in the end one ought to be entirely sympathetic to his criticisms of the insularity, pettiness, and narrowness of intellectuals in France, French intellectual history nevertheless involves much more than silly people saying silly things. The understanding of French intellectual life is not furthered by the assertion that significant strains of it are not worth appreciating."