An honest insight for an overdue public debate

Ill Fares The Land

Tony Judt, a British historian who spent most of his life in the USA, was deprived of the use of his arms and legs by the ravages of motor neuron disease.

Over many sleepless nights of agony, he drew on his memory to shape this swift and punchy thesis. Each day he dictated his reflections to an assistant. It first appeared as a long essay in The New York Review of Books in December 2009 and was later re-shaped into this book.