Comment on Tony Judt, Leading Public Intellectual, Confronts ALS by Myrth Burris

Dur­ing the past decade, Tony Judt emerged as one of Amer­i­ca’s lead­ing pub­lic intel­lec­tu­als. And many have had noth­ing but sheer praise for his mas­ter work, Post­war: A His­to­ry of Europe Since 1945. In 2008, Judt was diag­nosed with ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s dis­ease. In fact, quite the oppo­site, Judt has been ramp­ing up his pub­li­ca­tions, prov­ing even more pro­lif­ic than before. Judt’s bat­tle with ALS and his sense of intel­lec­tu­al urgency get dis­cussed in the lat­est edi­tion of New York Mag­a­zine.