New Releases by Michael Ignatieff

Winner of the Royal Society of Literature Award In The Russian Album, Michael Ignatieff chronicles five generations of his Russian family, beginning in 1815. Drawing on family diaries, on the contemplation of intriguing photographs in an old family album, and on stories passed down from father to son, he comes to terms with the meaning of his family's memories and histories. Focusing on his grandparents, Count Paul Ignatieff and Princess Natasha Mestchersky, he recreates their lives before, during, and after the Russian Revolution.

O explorare profundă a literaturii și artei consolării — de la Cartea lui Iov și Psalmi la Albert Camus, Primo Levi, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross sau mișcarea hospice. Când suferim pierderi sau asistăm la o catastrofă, căutăm consolare. Cândva domeniul preoților și al filosofilor, limbajul consolării a dispărut din vocabularul modern. Încă din secolul al XVI-lea, omenirea a început să renunțe la alinarea adusă de vechile texte religioase și s-a îndreptat către știință, ideologie și terapie. Cum ne consolăm unii pe alții și pe noi înșine într-o epocă a necredinței? Michael Ignatieff spune poveștile unor scriitori, pictori și muzicieni care au căutat consolarea și arată cum oameni aflați în situații extreme au reușit să-și regăsească speranța. Evocând momente în care personalități influente au găsit curajul să meargă mai departe, Despre consolare aduce aceste povești în prezent, susținând că putem reînvia tradițiile consolării ca să facem față suferințelor și nesiguranței secolului XXI.

Wenn wir einen geliebten Menschen verlieren, Verluste oder Schicksalsschläge erleiden, suchen wir nach Trost. Gesucht wird Trost heute immer weniger in religiösen Institutionen und politischen Traditionen. Stattdessen wird das Bedürfnis nach Trost zunehmend ins individuell Zwischenmenschliche und in private Netzwerke verlagert. Michael Ignatieff geht der Frage nach, wie es uns über Jahrtausende gelungen ist, Traditionen des Trosts zu erschaffen. Das Buch Hiob, die Psalmen und die Werke von Künstlern so verschieden wie Albert Camus, Anna Achmatowa und Primo Levi sind zeitlose Botschaften der Hoffnung. Diese verbindende Sprache des Trosts hat Generationen von Menschen dazu inspiriert, ihr Schicksal mit Würde zu anzunehmen. Ignatieff erweckt sie zu neuem Leben und zeigt, wie sie uns auch im 21. Jahrhundert helfen können, dem Leid und der Ungewissheit in der Welt hoffnungsvoll zu begegnen.

Winner of the Zócalo Book Prize A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice “Combines powerful moral arguments with superb storytelling.” —New Statesman What moral values do we hold in common? As globalization draws us together economically, are the things we value converging or diverging? These twin questions led Michael Ignatieff to embark on a three-year, eight-nation journey in search of an answer. What we share, he found, are what he calls “ordinary virtues”: tolerance, forgiveness, trust, and resilience. When conflicts break out, these virtues are easily exploited by the politics of fear and exclusion, reserved for one’s own group but denied to others. Yet these ordinary virtues are the key to healing and reconciliation on both a local and global scale. “Makes for illuminating reading.” —Simon Winchester, New York Review of Books “Engaging, articulate and richly descriptive... Ignatieff’s deft histories, vivid sketches and fascinating interviews are the soul of this important book.” —Times Literary Supplement “Deserves praise for wrestling with the devolution of our moral worlds over recent decades.” —Los Angeles Review of Books

This thought provoking 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 returns philosophy to its proper place, as a guide to the art of being human.

In 2005 Michael Ignatieff left his life as a writer and professor at Harvard University to enter the combative world of politics back home in Canada. By 2008, he was leader of the country’s Liberal Party and poised—should the governing Conservatives falter—to become Canada’s next Prime Minister. It never happened. Today, after a bruising electoral defeat, Ignatieff is back where he started, writing and teaching what he learned. What did he take away from this crash course in political success and failure? Did a life of thinking about politics prepare him for the real thing? How did he handle it when his own history as a longtime expatriate became a major political issue? Are cynics right to despair about democratic politics? Are idealists right to hope? Ignatieff blends reflection and analysis to portray today’s democratic politics as ruthless, unpredictable, unforgiving, and hyper-adversarial. Rough as it is, Ignatieff argues, democratic politics is a crucible for compromise, and many of the apparent vices of political life, from inconsistency to the fake smile, follow from the necessity of bridging differences in a pluralist society. A compelling account of modern politics as it really is, the book is also a celebration of the political life in all its wild, exuberant variety.

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.

In the noted journalist's acclaimed thriller, a foreign correspondent is determined to avenge a friend's the brutal murder in the Balkans. A New York Times Notable Book Charlie Johnson is an American journalist working somewhere in the Balkans. As a seasoned correspondent, he's seen everything. But suddenly he finds himself caught up in the events he's meant to be witnessing—when the woman sheltering Charlie and his crew is set on fire by a retreating Serbian colonel. As the woman stumbles, burning, down the road, Charlie dashes out of hiding to extinguish the flames. But he's too late. And when she dies, something snaps inside Charlie. He now realizes he has just one ambition left in life: to find the colonel and kill him. In Charlie Johnson in the Flames, Michael Ignatieff tells a story of striking contemporary relevance that has drawn comparisons to the novels of Graham Greene and Robert Stone's Dog Soldiers.

Since the proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, human rights have become the dominant language of the public good around the globe. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Canada. The long-standing fights for aboriginal rights, the linguistic heritage of French-speaking Canadians, and same-sex marriage have steered the country into a full-blown “rights revolution” — one that is being watched carefully around the world. Are group rights jeopardizing individual rights? When everyone asserts his or her rights, what happens to collective responsibility? Can families survive and prosper when each member has rights? Is rights language empowering individuals while weakening community? These essays, taken from Michael Ignatieff's famous Massey Lectures, addresses these questions and more, arguing passionately for the Canadian approach to rights that emphasizes deliberation rather than confrontation, compromise rather than violence. In a new afterword, the author explores Canada’s political achievements and distinctive stance on rights, and offers penetrating commentary on more recent world events.

"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"""

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.

Charlie Johnson ist Kriegsjournalist. Während des Bürgerkriegs in Jugoslawien wird eine unschuldige Zivilistin brutal ermordet. Beim Versuch, die Frau zu retten, erleidet Charlie selbst schwere Verbrennungen und ein psychisches Trauma. Nach seiner Genesung nimmt er sich vor, in Zukunft ehrlich zu sich selbst zu sein: Er trennt sich von seiner Ehefrau, gibt seine Stelle auf und macht sich alleine auf die Suche nach dem Mörder der Frau. Spannender, in der Tradition der Moderne nüchtern und unspektakulär geschriebener, in die Tiefe gehender Roman von Michael Ignatieff (BA 12/89; 10/92; 1/95; 7/95): voller Aktualität, über Kriege, Brutalität und Kaltblütigkeit in der Welt, wobei der Schwerpunkt darauf liegt, wie man selbst damit umgeht sowie mit der ungelösten Frage des "Warum". Sehr zu empfehlen.

In Empire Lite, Michael Ignatieff explores both sides of what he sees as a new global empire - the imperial and the humanitarian - and argues that the international community has failed to engage intelligently with the problems of nation building in the aftermath of apocalyptic events. The collapse of political order around the world is now seen as a major threat, and a new international order is emerging, one that is crafted to suit American imperial objectives. This presents humanitarian agencies with the dilemma of how to keep their programs from being suborned to imperial interests. Yet they know that it was American air-power that made an uneasy peace and humanitarian reconstruction possible, first in Bosnia, then in Kosovo, and finally in Afghanistan. This is the new world of geopolitics we live in and must try to grasp. The vivid, cogent essays in this book attempt to understand the phenomenon of state collapse and state failure in the world's zones of danger and the gradual emergence of an American led humanitarian empire. Focussing on nation building in Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan, Ignatieff reveals how American military power, European money and humanitarian motive have combined to produce a form of imperial rule for a post-imperial age. Drawing on his own experiences of war zones, and with an extraordinary account of life in Afghanistan, Ignatieff identifies the illusions that make a genuine act of solidarity so difficult and asks what can be done to help people in war-torn societies enjoy the essential right to rule themselves.

En mayo de 1999, en el vasto campamento que se extendió de la noche a la mañana bajo los cielos de Macedonia, la petición desesperada que se podía escuchar por doquier no hacía referencia a la comida o al agua, sino a los teléfonos móviles, necesarios para localizar a los hijos, a los maridos o a los padres perdidos en el caos de Kosovo. De las llamadas telefónicas vía satélite a los misiles guiados por láser, se trataba de una guerra de finales del siglo XX, en la que imperaba la tecnología. En las guerras «reales» se movilizan naciones enteras, los soldados combaten y mueren y se producen victorias. En la guerra virtual, puede que ni siquiera se declaren hostilidades. Los combatientes son pilotos de caza y programas de ordenador, la nación es la audiencia televisiva y en lugar de victoria sólo existe un final incierto. Kosovo fue una guerra virtual: allí combatieron pilotos a 5.000 metros de altura, fue dirigida por generales que contemplaban la batalla únicamente a través de la perspectiva de sus pilotos, y nos fue narrada por medios de comunicación rivales que proporcionaban versiones distintas de las consecuencias: una guerra en la que combatieron los estadounidenses y las fuerzas de la OTAN pero sólo murieron los serbios y los kosovares. Michael Ignatieff ha recorrido las zonas en las que se desarrolló el conflicto durante una década, realizando emotivos reportajes y llevando a cabo lúcidos análisis. Pero Kosovo supuso un cambio cualitativo en la historia de las agresiones armadas, y en Guerra virtual Ignatieff examina este extraño tipo de guerra a través de los ojos de los actores principales –el diplomático Richard Holbrooke, el general Wesley Clark y Louise Arbour, fiscal jefe del Tribunal para los Crímenes de Guerra– y de las personas que la sufrieron. El resultado es un libro penetrante y profundo que plantea cuestiones fundamentales sobre la guerra y los valores humanos en los albores de un nuevo siglo.

Michael Ignatieff analiza el nuevo imperio global, tanto desde el aspecto humanitario como imperial, y concluye que la comunidad internacional ha fracasado a la hora de involucrarse de una forma inteligente en los problemas de la reconstrucción nacional que sigue a las guerras u otras catástrofes. En la actualidad, el colapso del orden político mundial supone un serio peligro, al tiempo que emerge un nuevo orden internacional diseñado para acomodarse a los objetivos imperiales estadounidenses. Las organizaciones humanitarias se enfrentan al reto de evitar que sus programas queden subordinados a dichos intereses. Y, por muy evidente que sea que esa paz tan precaria se ha conseguido gracias a la fuerza militar norteamericana, plantea también el problema de la reconstrucción humanitaria, tal como ocurrió en Bosnia, Kosovo y Afganistán. Éste es el nuevo escenario geopolítico en el que habitamos y que debemos tratar de comprender. Los lúcidos y esclarecedores ensayos de este libro ilustran los fenómenos del colapso y el fracaso del Estado en diversas zonas especialmente vulnerables del mundo, así como el surgimiento gradual de un imperio humanitario liderado por Estados Unidos. Centrando su atención en los procesos de reconstrucción nacional en Bosnia, Kosovo y Afganistán, Ignatieff nos muestra cómo el poder militar estadounidense, la financiación europea y las motivaciones humanitarias se han combinado para dar lugar a un nuevo tipo de gobierno imperial propio de nuestra era posimperial. Basándose en su experiencia en zonas de guerra y con una extraordinaria descripción de la vida cotidiana en Afganistán, Ignatieff identifica los engaños que hacen tan difíciles los actos de solidaridad y se pregunta qué se puede hacer para conseguir que los miembros de sociedades devastadas por la guerra disfruten de un derecho esencial como es el de gobernarse a sí mismos.

"Virtual War" describes the latest phase in modern combat: war fought by remote control. Kosovo was such a virtual war, a war in which US and NATO forces did the fighting but only Kosovars and Serbs did the dying. Ignatieff raises the troubling possibility that virtual wars, so much easier to fight, could become the way superpowers impose their will in the century ahead.

Isaiah Berlin war die Stimme einer Generation, der grosse Vordenker des Liberalismus im 20. Jahrhundert. Toleranz, Freiheitsliebe und die Faehigkeit zu persoenlichem Glueck praegen sein Leben und Werk, in dem sich Lust am Denken, Sprachkraft und Weltbuergerschaft verbinden. Einstein nannte ihn einen Schauspieler in Gottes grossem Theater. Doch Isaiah Berlin war mehr als ein brillanter Unterhaltungskuenstler auf der Buehne der grossen Geister. Mit unermuedlichem Eintreten fuer Toleranz und Freiheit hat er den politischen und philosophischen Liberalismus im 20. Jahrhundert entscheidend gepraegt--die politische Theorie, die sich letztlich als einzig tragbare behauptet hat. Die drei rivalisierenden Identitaeten, die Berlin in sich trug--die russische durch seinen Geburtsort Riga, die juedische durch Familie, die britische durch das Exil--verflocht er zu einem einzigartigen Charakter. Er akzeptierte die Gegensaetze seiner Existenz und formte daraus ein wahrhaft liberales Temperament, dem das Streben nach Toleranz und Freiheit ebenso innewohnt wie seinem Werk. "Leben ist die Schoepfung derjenigen, die leben--Schritt fuer Schritt." Dieses Credo enthaelt seine ansteckende Lust am Abenteuer der Erkenntnis ("Denken ist ein Vorstoss ins Unbekannte") und seine unerschoepfliche Lust am Leben. Ignatieff ist es gelungen, Berlins beinahe erotische Beziehung zum Denken und zur Sprache in seiner Biographie einzufangen.

Since the early 1990s, Michael Ignatieff has traveled the world's war zones, from Bosnia to the West Bank, from Afghanistan to central Africa. The Warrior's Honor is a report and a reflection on what he has seen in the places where ethnic war has become a way of life. Ignatieff charts the rise of the new moral interventionists--the relief workers, reporters, delegates, and diplomats who believe that other people's misery is of concern to us all. And he brings us face-to-face with the new ethnic warriors--the warlords, gunmen, and paramilitaries--who have escalated postmodern war to an unprecedented level of savagery. Hard-hitting and passionate, The Warrior's Honor is a profound and searching exploration of the perils and obligations of moral citizenship in a world scarred by war and genocide.

Until the end of the Cold War, the politics of national identity was confined to isolated incidents of ethnics strife and civil war in distant countries. Now, with the collapse of Communist regimes across Europe and the loosening of the Cold War's clamp on East-West relations, a surge of nationalism has swept the world stage. In Blood and Belonging, Ignatieff makes a thorough examination of why blood ties--in places as diverse as Yugoslavia, Kurdistan, Northern Ireland, Quebec, Germany, and the former Soviet republics--may be the definitive factor in international relation today. He asks how ethnic pride turned into ethnic cleansing, whether modern citizens can lay the ghosts of a warring past, why--and whether--a people need a state of their own, and why armed struggle might be justified. Blood and Belonging is a profound and searching look at one of the most complex issues of our time.

Painful story of love and acceptance of loss, looking at the questions of selfhood and selflessness.

Written to accompany a BBC2 series, this book explores both sides of modern nationalism, one of the most complex and volatile issues of our time. It is a personal odyssey which begins in the nightmare of the former Yugoslavia and ends with the author's return to the disunited United Kingdom. He journeys also to the Ukraine, Quebec and Germany, and in the mountains of Kurdistan he talks to the world's largest stateless people, the Kurds.