Michael Ignatieff

In 2005 Michael Ignatieff left Harvard to lead Canada's Liberal Party and by 2008 was poised to become Prime Minister. It never happened. He describes what he learned from his bruising defeat about compromise and the necessity of bridging differences in a pluralist society. A reflective, compelling account of modern politics as it really is.

Fire and Ashes

a life

Isaiah Berlin

Timely and profound philosophical meditations on how great figures in history, literature, music, and art searched for solace while facing tragedies and crises, from the internationally renowned historian of ideas and Booker Prize finalist Michael Ignatieff When we lose someone we love, when we suffer loss or defeat, when catastrophe strikes—war, famine, pandemic—we go in search of consolation. Once the province of priests and philosophers, the language of consolation has largely vanished from our modern vocabulary, and the places where it was offered, houses of religion, are often empty. Rejecting the solace of ancient religious texts, humanity since the sixteenth century has increasingly placed its faith in science, ideology, and the therapeutic. How do we console each other and ourselves in an age of unbelief? In a series of lapidary meditations on writers, artists, musicians, and their works—from the books of Job and Psalms to Albert Camus, Anna Akhmatova, and Primo Levi—esteemed writer and historian Michael Ignatieff shows how men and women in extremity have looked to each other across time to recover hope and resilience. Recreating the moments when great figures found the courage to confront their fate and the determination to continue unafraid, On Consolation takes those stories into the present, movingly contending that we can revive these traditions of consolation to meet the anguish and uncertainties of our precarious twenty-first century.

Finding Solace in Dark Times

On Consolation

The author of Blood and Belonging chronicles one woman's descent into Alzheimer's and her sons' painful witness to the tragedy, which is enhanced by their careers in philosophy and neurology and by strengthened family bonds.

Scar Tissue

Must we fight terrorism with terror, match assassination with assassination, and torture with torture? Must we sacrifice civil liberty to protect public safety? In the age of terrorism, the temptations of ruthlessness can be overwhelming. But we are pulled in the other direction too by the anxiety that a violent response to violence makes us morally indistinguishable from our enemies. There is perhaps no greater political challenge today than trying to win the war against terror without losing our democratic souls. Michael Ignatieff confronts this challenge head-on, with the combination of hard-headed idealism, historical sensitivity, and political judgment that has made him one of the most influential voices in international affairs today. Ignatieff argues that we must not shrink from the use of violence--that far from undermining liberal democracy, force can be necessary for its survival. But its use must be measured, not a program of torture and revenge. And we must not fool ourselves that whatever we do in the name of freedom and democracy is good. We may need to kill to fight the greater evil of terrorism, but we must never pretend that doing so is anything better than a lesser evil. In making this case, Ignatieff traces the modern history of terrorism and counter-terrorism, from the nihilists of Czarist Russia and the militias of Weimar Germany to the IRA and the unprecedented menace of Al Qaeda, with its suicidal agents bent on mass destruction. He shows how the most potent response to terror has been force, decisive and direct, but--just as important--restrained. The public scrutiny and political ethics that motivate restraint also give democracy its strongest weapon: the moral power to endure when the furies of vengeance and hatred are spent. The book is based on the Gifford Lectures delivered at the University of Edinburgh in 2003.

Political Ethics in an Age of Terror

The Lesser Evil

This brilliant and penetrating book uncovers a crisis in the political imagination, a wide-spread failure to provide the passionate sense of community "in which our need for belonging can be met". Seeking the answers to fundamental questions, Michael Ignatieff writes vividly both about ideas and about the people who tried to live by them - from Augustine to Bosch, from Rousseau to Simone Weil. Incisive and moving, The Needs of Strangers return to philosophy to its proper place, as a guide to the art of being human.

The Needs of Strangers

Fuego y cenizas: éxito y fracaso en política

Originally published: London: BBC Books, 1993.

Journeys Into the New Nationalism

Blood and Belonging

"The Warrior's Honour" is a profound and searching exploration of the troubled connection between the zones of safety and the zones of danger that configure the modern world. Reporting from places where ethnic conflict has become a way of life--from the West Bank to Bosnia, from Afghanistan to central Africa--Ignatieff brings astute analysis and insight to the complexity of the modern world. "Few have probed ethnic conflict more deeply than Michael Ignatieff ... "The Warrior's Honour" combines superior reporting with provocative and troubling insights."-- "The New York Review of Books""""" "Ignatieff is a public intellectual at his journalistic best here, dedicating his academically trained mind to marshalling the facts, interpreting the world, and forcing us to care about horrors we might otherwise not see ... "The Warrior's Honour" enlarges our understanding of the moral dilemmas of global society."-- "The Financial Post" "Ignatieff grounds his painful insights and liberal analysis in a penetrating assemblage of facts, voices, and pathos that is worthy of comparison with the literary reportage of Rebecca West, Edmund Wilson, and Janet Flanner."-- "The Boston Globe"""

Ethnic War and the Modern Conscience

The Warrior's Honour

With The Warrior's Honor and Virtual War, Blood & Belonging forms part of the acclaimed trilogy by Michael Ignatieff on the face of modern conflict. In 1993 Michael Ignatieff set out on a journey to the former Yugoslavia, the Ukraine, Germany, Quebec, Kurdistan and Northern Ireland in order to explore the many faces of modern nationalism at its worst. Modern nationalism is a language of blood: a call to arms that can end in the horror of ethnic cleansing. But it is also a language of belonging: a call to come home. In Blood & Belonging Michael Ignatieff explores both sides of nationalism in a personal odyssey that begins in the nightmare of the former Yugoslavia and ends with his return to his adopted homeland, Great Britain's disunited kingdom.

Journeys into the New Nationalism

Blood And Belonging

Thomas Chatterton Williams

Leon Wieseltier

David Thomson

Ramachandra Guha

Joshua Bennett

Mark Lilla

Sean Wilentz

Louise Glück

Adam Zagajewski

David Grossman

Sally Satel

Hannah Sullivan

Laura Kipnis

Helen Vendler

Andrea Marcolongo

James Wolcott

Clara Collier

Celeste Marcus

Eli Lake

Moshe Halbertal

Julius Margolin

Shawn McCreesh

Liberties - A Journal of Culture and Politics is a quarterly of essays and poetry from some of the world's most celebrated independent thinkers, leading artists, and up-and-coming literary voices.

Volume I, Issue 1

Liberties Journal of Culture and Politics

Diese ungewöhnlichen Erinnerungen erzählen die dramatische Geschichte von vier Generationen einer aristokratischen weißrussischen Familie – ihr luxuriöses Leben im zaristischen Rußland, die Verfolgung und Flucht durch den Bürgerkrieg und schließlich die Ankunft im Exil und den Neubeginn. Der Enkel und Autor Michael Ignatieff bedient sich der Tagebücher der Großeltern und entrollt so rückblickend das Leben seiner Familie in einer nicht mehr vorhandenen Welt.

Geschichte einer Familie

Das russische Album

Reissue of a profound exploration of the concept of human need by the esteemed author of On Consolation ________________ 'Michael Ignatieff writes an urgent prose... he will convince people, in highly readable fashion, that the ideas he discusses really matter' Salman Rushdie, Guardian 'Beautifully written and profoundly thoughtful' New Statesman 'Elegant meditations on human need' New Republic ________________ What does a person need, not just to survive, but to flourish? In this profound, searching book, Michael Ignatieff explores the many human needs that go beyond basic sustenance: for love, for respect, for community and consolation. In a society of strangers, how might we find a common language to express such needs? Ignatieff's lucid, penetrating enquiry takes him back to great works of philosophy, literature and art, from St. Augustine to Hieronymus Bosch to Shakespeare. Reissued with a new preface, The Needs of Strangers builds to a moving meditation on the possibility of accommodating claims of difference within a politics based on common need.

On Solidarity and the Politics of Being Human

Reissue of this sweeping, poignant account of generations of the author's Russian family: a story of revolution, exile and the search for roots 'A vividly fascinating account by a gifted writer who sweeps back the curtain from the past, revealing it full of color and life.' New York Times Book Review 'This beautifully written book . . . is about tenderness, courage, and a sublime life-force' Observer 'A poignant family memoir, a fitting close to Russian life before the 'red curtain of the revolution'' LA Times Poring over his grandparents' memoirs, grainy photographs of his distinguished ancestors and relating family lore passed from father to son, Michael Ignatieff begins a moving journey to come to terms with his inheritance that is bound up with the violent tumult of Russian history. With great care and complexity, Ignatieff reconstructs a vanished way of life. Beginning in the opulent court of Catherine the Great, he traces his family's rise to great influence in the imperial regime of Tsar Nicholas II before the country is swept up in revolution, civil war and exile. A profound meditation on rootlessness and belonging, The Russian Album explores both how we are formed by our pasts, but also how we must write our own stories in the present.

The Russian Album

Michael Ignatieff draws on his extensive experience as a writer and commentator on world affairs to present a penetrating account of the successes, failures, and prospects of the human rights revolution. Since the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, this revolution has brought the world moral progress and broken the nation-state's monopoly on the conduct of international affairs. But it has also faced challenges. Ignatieff argues that human rights activists have rightly drawn criticism from Asia, the Islamic world, and within the West itself for being overambitious and unwilling to accept limits. It is now time, he writes, for activists to embrace a more modest agenda and to reestablish the balance between the rights of states and the rights of citizens. Ignatieff begins by examining the politics of human rights, assessing when it is appropriate to use the fact of human rights abuse to justify intervention in other countries. He then explores the ideas that underpin human rights, warning that human rights must not become an idolatry. In the spirit of Isaiah Berlin, he argues that human rights can command universal assent only if they are designed to protect and enhance the capacity of individuals to lead the lives they wish. By embracing this approach and recognizing that state sovereignty is the best guarantee against chaos, Ignatieff concludes, Western nations will have a better chance of extending the real progress of the past fifty years. Throughout, Ignatieff balances idealism with a sure sense of practical reality earned from his years of travel in zones of war and political turmoil around the globe. Based on the Tanner Lectures that Ignatieff delivered at Princeton University's Center for Human Values in 2000, the book includes two chapters by Ignatieff, an introduction by Amy Gutmann, comments by four leading scholars--K. Anthony Appiah, David A. Hollinger, Thomas W. Laqueur, and Diane F. Orentlicher--and a response by Ignatieff.

Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry

Istvan Hont

Wealth and Virtue reassesses the remarkable contribution of the Scottish Enlightenment to the formation of modern economics and to theories of capitalism. Its unique range indicates the scope of the Scottish intellectual achievement of the eighteenth century and explores the process by which the boundaries between economic thought, jurisprudence, moral philosophy and theoretical history came to be established. Dealing not only with major figures like Hume and Smith, there are also studies of lesser known thinkers like Andrew Fletcher, Gershom Carmichael, Lord Kames and John Millar as well as of Locke in the light of eighteenth century social theory, the intellectual culture of the University of Edinburgh in the middle of the eighteenth century and of the performance of the Scottish economy on the eve of the publication of the Wealth of Nations. While the scholarly emphasis is on the rigorous historical reconstruction of both theory and context, Wealth and Virtue directly addresses itself to modern political theorists and economists and throws light on a number of major focal points of controversy in legal and political philosophy.

The Shaping of Political Economy in the Scottish Enlightenment

Wealth and Virtue

Encountering Illness

A biography of the Soviet-born British philosopher describes how he was shaped by the politics and culture of his time, and his contributions to contemporary liberal philosophy

A Life

Introduction: Moral globalization and its discontents -- Jackson Heights, New York: Diversity Plaza -- Los Angeles: the moral operating systems of global cities -- Rio de Janeiro: order, corruption, and public trust -- Bosnia: war and reconciliation -- Myanmar: the politics of moral narrative -- Fukushima: resilience and the unimaginable -- South Africa: after the rainbow -- Conclusion: Human rights, global ethics, and the ordinary virtues

Michael Ignatieff

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