By Valerie J. Nelson
Los Angeles Times
Tony Judt, a leading historian of postwar Europe and outspoken political essayist who also wrote movingly about his struggle with Lou Gehrig’s disease, has died. He was 62.
Judt, who was a history professor at New York University, died Friday at his home in Manhattan of complications from the disease, the university announced.
In 2005, his career reached its zenith with the publication of “Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945,” a hefty book that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Writing in the New Yorker, intellectual historian Louis Menand called Judt’s scope “virtually superhuman.”