"Judt’s essays become both more important and more troubling for being brought together in one volume. The publication of Reappraisals certainly confirms, were any confirmation still needed, his standing as a significant figure in the public intellectual life of the contemporary United States. I salute the range, the command, and the courage displayed in his writing. But spending a prolonged spell in his literary company also leaves me feeling a bit uncomfortable. I feel that I would be forced into banging the table in my turn if I wanted to enter the conversations whose terms he partly sets. We need historians to play the role that Judt so ably does, but perhaps we need them also to be a bit less at ease with that role. The best works of history rarely yield unambiguous support to any political cause or affiliation, and we look to the vocabulary, register, and cadence of good historical writing to communicate that chastened sense of complexity which otherwise can struggle to get itself heard in public debate. That’s not everything, of course. But it’s not ‘nothing’, either."