Michael Ignatieff : Biography

Michael Ignatieff is a Canadian historian, university professor, writer, and former politician.

After completing a doctorate at Harvard and teaching history at the University of British Columbia, he was awarded a Senior Research Fellowship at King’s College Cambridge, co-directing a project on the origins of classical economic theory. He left academic life in 1984 to work as a free-lance writer and journalist in London, making television documentaries for the BBC and writing a column for The Observer. In 2000, he returned to academic life with an appointment as director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School.

In 2005, he left the Kennedy School to enter Canadian politics. Between 2006 and 2011, he served as an MP in the Parliament of Canada and then as Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and Leader of the Official Opposition. He is a member of the Queen’s Privy Council and is a recipient of the Order of Canada.

After leaving politics, he returned to academic life, serving as Centennial Chair at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs in New York and Edward R. Murrow Chair of Press, Politics and Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. Between 2016 and 2021, he was the Rector and President of Central European University in Budapest, leading the university to Vienna after its expulsion by Prime Minister Viktor Orban. He is currently a professor of history at CEU in Vienna, Austria.

He is the author of eighteen books, including The Needs of Strangers (1984), Scar Tissue (1992, nominated for the Booker Prize), Isaiah Berlin (1998), The Rights Revolution (2000), Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry (2001), The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror (2004), Fire and Ashes: Success and Failure in Politics (2013) ; The Ordinary Virtues: Moral Order in a Divided World (2017); On Consolation: Finding Solace in Dark Times, (2021).

He chairs the Advisory Council of the Centre for Ethics in AI at Oxford and is a member of the Board of the Carnegie Corporation of New York. He was awarded the Dan David Prize in 2019 for the defense of academic freedom, the Symons Medal of the Canadian Confederation Centre in 2023 and in 2024, the Princess of Asturias Prize for the social sciences. He is the recipient of fourteen honorary degrees.

Education

1978: MA, Cambridge University

1976: PhD, History, Harvard University

1969: BA Honors, History, University of Toronto

Boards and Commissions

2023: Board of Trustees, Carnegie Corporation of New York

2022: Advisory Council, Carnegie Council on Ethics in International Affairs

2020: Chairman, Advisory Council, Oxford Institute on Ethics in AI

2019: Visiting Committee, Harvard Kennedy School

2018: International Advisory Board of Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice, Queen’s University, Belfast

2017: Advisory Committee, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University

2016-2021: Open Society Foundation Global Board

2016-2021: Academic Advisory Board, Blavatnik School, Oxford

2016: Academic Advisory Board, Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna

Books

2021: On Consolation: Finding Solace in Dark Times (New York: Metropolitan)

2018: (edited by) Rethinking Open Society: New Adversaries and New Opportunities (CEU Press)

2018: (edited by) Academic Freedom: The Global Challenge (CEU Press)

2017: The Ordinary Virtues: Moral Order in a Divided World (Harvard University Press)

2013: Fire and Ashes: Success and Failure in Politics (Harvard University Press, Random House Canada)

2009: True Patriot Love: Four Generations in Search of Canada (Penguin Canada)

2005: (edited by) American Exceptionalism and Human Rights (Princeton University Press)

2005: (edited by) Making States Work: State Failure and the Crisis of Governance (United Nations University Press)

2004: The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror (Princeton University Press)

2003: Empire Lite: Nation-Building in Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan (Minerva)

2001: Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry (Princeton University Press)

2000: The Rights Revolution: The Massey Lectures (Toronto, Stoddart)

1999: Virtual War: Kosovo and Beyond (New York, Henry Holt)

1998: Isaiah Berlin: A Life (New York, Henry Holt)

1997: The Warrior’s Honor: Ethnic War and the Modern Conscience (New York, Henry Holt)

1993: Blood and Belonging: Journeys into the New Nationalism (New York, Farrar Strauss)

1987: The Russian Album (New York, Vintage)

1983: Wealth and Virtue: The Shaping of Political Economy in the Scottish Enlightenment (Istvan Hont ed.)(Cambridge University Press)

1983: The Needs of Strangers (New York, Viking Press)

1978: A Just Measure of Pain: Penitentiaries in the Industrial Revolution, 1780-1850 (New York, Pantheon)

Foreign Language Editions

Bulgarian, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Korean, Japanese, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Serbian, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish.

Novels

2003: Charlie Johnson in the Flames (New York, Grove Atlantic)

1993: Scar Tissue (New York, Farrar Strauss), Shortlisted for the Booker Prize, 1993

1991: Asya (New York, Farrar Strauss)

Essays

2018 Selected Essays:

“Making room for God,” The New York Review of Books, June 28, 2018
“The last great liberal,” Prospect Magazine, March 2018
“Who killed Frank Olson?” The New York Review of Books, February 22, 2018

2017 Selected Essays:

“The Refugee as Invasive Other,” Social Research: An International Quarterly 84:1, Spring 2017
“Which Way Are We Going?” The New York Review of Books, April 6, 2017
“Human Rights, Global Ethics, and the Ordinary Virtues,” Ethics & International Affairs 31:1, Spring 2017

2016 Selected Essays:

“The refugee and migration crisis: Proposals for action, U.N. Summit 2016,” The Brookings Institution
“Second Thoughts of a Biographer,” in Isaiah Berlin and the Enlightenment, Oxford: OUP
“The Forever War?” The New York Review of Books, September 29, 2016

Television Writing and Hosting

2000: “Future War,” 3×50 minutes on the transformation of American military power for BBC, CTV March 2000

1999: “One World?” 1×50 minutes for C4 Television, 10th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall

1997: “Getting Away with Murder,” 1×50 minutes for BBC on the South African Truth Commission Amnesty Hearings

– Best Documentary, Monte Carlo Film and Television Festival, Royal Television Society of Great Britain

1995: “Guardians of Chaos,” 1×50 minutes for BBC on the 50th anniversary of the United Nations

1993: “Blood and Belonging,” 6X50 minutes series for BBC, CBS and PBS on ethnic nationalism in Yugoslavia, Turkey, Quebec Germany, Ukraine and Northern Ireland

– Gemini Award for Best Documentary, 1993

Career

2021: Professor of History, Central European University, Vienna

2016-2021: President and Rector, Central European University, Budapest

2018: Honorary Professor, Dickson Poon School of Law, King’s College London

2017: Honorary Fellow, St. Antony’s College, Oxford

2016: Distinguished Fellow, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto

2014-2016: Edward R. Murrow Chair of Press, Politics and Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School

2013: Professor of Practice, Harvard Kennedy School

2012-2015: Centennial Chair, Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, New York

2012-2013: Professor of International Relations, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto

2011-2012: Senior Resident Fellow, Massey College, University of Toronto

2009-2011: Leader, Liberal Party of Canada and Leader of the Official Opposition, Parliament of Canada

2007-2008: Deputy Leader, Liberal Party of Canada

2006-2011: Member of Parliament, House of Commons of Canada, Ottawa

2000-2005: Contributing Writer, The New York Times Magazine

2000-2005: Professor of Practice and Director, Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

1996-1998: Alastair Horne Visiting Fellow, St. Antony’s College, Oxford

1989-1993: Editorial Columnist, The Observer, London

1985-2000: Freelance Writer, Broadcaster and Journalist, London

1985: Visiting Scholar, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris

1978-1984: Senior Research Fellow, King’s College, Cambridge

1976-1978: Assistant Professor, History Department, University of British Columbia

Honorary Degrees

2024: Cambridge University, United Kingdom

2019: University of Maastricht, Netherlands

2018: University of Edinburgh, Scotland

2009: University of Tilburg, Netherlands

2008: Niagara University, New York

2004: Whitman College, Walla Walla Washington

2003: University of Regina, Saskatchewan

2002: McGill University, Montreal

2001: University of Western Ontario, London

2001: Queens University, Kingston

2001: University of New Brunswick, Fredericton

1999: Trinity College, University of Toronto

1995: Stirling University, Scotland

1995: Bishop’s University, Lennoxville, Quebec

Honors and Awards

2023: Symons Medal

2019: Dan David Prize

2018: Zocalo Public Square Book Prize, Los Angeles

2016: Member, Order of Canada

2013: The William Hazlitt Essay Prize, London

2012: Cerecedo Prize, European Journalist’s Foundation, Madrid

2012: Queen’s Jubilee Medal, Canada

2009: Member, Queen’s Privy Council for Canada

2003: The Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Writing, City of Bremen, Germany

2003: Chevalier of the Order of Academic Palms, Government of France

2002: Otis Social Justice Award

2001: The George Orwell Prize

2000: MacArthur Foundation Grant

1998: University of British Columbia, Biography Prize

1994: Cornelius Ryan Award of the Overseas Press Club, New York

1993: Lionel Gelber Prize for Writing on Foreign Affairs

1987: Canadian Governor General’s Award for Non‐Fiction

1987: Royal Society of Literature Heinemann Prize

Major Lectures

2022: Edmund Burke Lecture, Trinity College, Dublin

2018: 11th Elenchus Lecturer, United States Coast Guard Academy, New London, CT

2018: Schumann Lecture, Maastricht University

2018: The Ralf Dahrendorf Lecture, St. Antony’s College, Oxford

2018: The Burton R. Clark Lecture on Higher Education, Center for Global Higher Education, University College London

2018: Samuel L. and Elizabeth Jodidi Lecture, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University

2018: The Larkin-Stuart Lecture 2018, Trinity College, University of Toronto

2017: WRR lecture 2017, The Hague

2016: Uehiro-Carnegie-Oxford Lecture in Practical Ethics, Merton College, Oxford

2016: Fulbright Lectures, Edinburgh University, Kings College, London, Pembroke College, Oxford

2016: Anne and Bernard Spitzer Lecture, City College of New York

2016: Religion and Conflict Lecture Series, Arizona State University