Tony Judt’s last book, Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945, was a highly elegant historical tome — words we’re not accustomed to typing — and these essays on European, Middle Eastern, and American affairs will only solidify his position among the best leftist writers around of broad-minded, historically informed political commentary. Judt is at his bravest and most informative when he exposes the fault lines in our received wisdom on topics like the current state of Israel and the West versus “Islamo-Fascism.”