Michael Ignatieff Books

Liberties Journal of Culture and Politics is devoted to educating the general public about the history, current trends, and possibilities of culture and politics.

Paperback. Signed by Hugh Brody on title page. Covers and inside covers are lightly marked. Leading corners, edges and spine are worn. Light scores on covers and half title page. Pages are clean and contents are clear throughout. Binding is sound. HJW

From renowned intellectual and historian Michael Ignatieff comes a moving portrait of artists, writers, politicians, emperors, and poets overcoming tragedy and crisis an ancient tradition of consolation which will resonate with readers in our turbulent times.

The Russian Album takes us back through five generations to 1815. Focusing on his grandparents, Count Paul Ignatieff and Princess Natasha Mestchersky, Ignatieff recreates their lives before and during the Russian Revolution.

Must we fight terrorism with terror and torture with torture? Must we sacrifice civil liberty to protect public safety?In the age of terrorism Michael Ignatieff argues that we must not shrink from the use of violence. But its use - in a liberal democracy - must be measured. 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. He shows how the most potent response to terror has been force, decisive and direct, yet restrained. The public scrutiny and political ethics that motivate restraint also give democracy its strongest weapon: the moral power to endure when vengeance and hatred are spent.

The 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq raised a critical question in global politics: does the United States operate within the framework of international law? This work examines America's adherence to human rights standards compared to other Western nations. Featuring essays from eleven prominent experts in international relations and law, it highlights the distinctiveness of the U.S. approach to human rights. Michael Ignatieff's introduction outlines three forms of exceptionalism: exemptionalism (supporting treaties while seeking exemptions for Americans), double standards (criticizing others for ignoring international human rights findings while overlooking similar issues in the U.S.), and legal isolationism (American judges often disregarding foreign legal precedents). Contributors build on Ignatieff's insights to analyze specific aspects of exceptionalism, such as capital punishment and free speech, and investigate its social, cultural, and institutional foundations. Most essays are published here for the first time and have been revised from a year-long lecture series at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. Notable contributors include Stanley Hoffmann, Paul Kahn, Harold Koh, and Cass Sunstein.

An impassioned defense of open society, academic and media freedom, and human rights. George Soros -- universally known for his philanthropy, progressive politics, and investment success--has been under sustained attack from the far right, nationalists, and anti-Semites in the United States and around the world because of his commitment to open society and liberal democracy. In this brilliant and spirited book, Soros brings together a vital collection of his writings, some never previously published. They deal with a wide range of important and timely topics: the dangers that the instruments of control produced by artificial intelligence and machine learning pose to open societies; what Soros calls his "political philanthropy"; his founding of the Central European University, one of the world's foremost defender of academic freedom; his philosophy; his boom/bust theory of financial markets and its policy implications; and what he calls the tragedy of the European Union. Soros's forceful affirmation of freedom, democracy, the rule of law, human rights, social justice, and social responsibility as a universal idea is a clarion call-to-arms for the ideals of open society.

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. Based on the Tanner Lectures that Ignatieff delivered at Princeton University's Center for Human Values in 2000.

Isaiah Berlin was one of the great thinkers and most electrifying speakers of his time. A magnetic public intellectual and beacon of liberal philosophy, he gained astonishing first-hand experience of some of the pivotal events of the twentieth century. Berlin refused to write an autobiography, but he did agree to talk about himself: in the last decade of his life, he allowed acclaimed writer Michael Ignatieff to interview him about his past, his ideas, his intimate memories and innermost conflicts. The result is a magisterial biography that penetrates deeply into Berlin's life and thought while capturing his captivating, vivid style of conversation. We learn of Berlin's Russian childhood during the Bolshevik Revolution, his happiness as a scholar at Oxford and later work in Washington D.C. during the Second World War; and we hear unforgettable anecdotes of encounters with Virginia Woolf, Sigmund Freud, Winston Churchill and Boris Pasternak. Reissued in a revised and updated edition, Isaiah Berlin charts one man's journey to becoming one of his century's most vigorous defenders of liberty and individuality in the face of tyranny and dogma.