Welcome
I’m delighted that you’ve found your way to this site. I hope you’ll find it useful.
I’ve included information about my life and career as a writer, historian, professor and politician. You’ll also find a complete bibliography of my writing and you can download some of my pieces.
I’ve also included links so that if you want to buy my books, you can do so.
I’m happy to say that my latest book On Consolation: Finding Solace in Dark Times, after appearing in the UK, Canada and the US, has been published in German, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, Polish, Czech, Chinese, and Romanian, as well as in audiobook form. Four of my previously published titles, Isaiah Berlin: a life, The Needs of Strangers, The Russian Albumand Blood and Belonging: Journeys into the New Nationalism have all been re-issued with new prefaces by Pushkin Press in London.
If you’d like to get in touch with a query or a comment, please click the button provided and I will try to reply as soon as I can.
Awards & Interviews
Princess of Asturias Award in the Social Sciences
Michael Ignatieff wins the 2024 Princess of Asturias Award in the Social Sciences
— October 2024
2023 Symons Medal Presentation and Lecture
Held annually, the Symons Medal Presentation and Lecture offer a national platform for an eminent Canadian to discuss the nation’s current state, shared histories, and prospects using themes related to their professional pursuits.
— Nov 8, 2023 @ Confederation Centre of the Arts
Thinking Clearly about War and Violence: The Role of Humanitarian Law
The lecture by the Professor, of the CEU Department of History, Michael Ignatieff entitled “Thinking Clearly About War and Violence: The Role of Humanitarian Law” is the inaugural lecture of the CEU Talks series where the faculty discusses current issues.
— Nov 22, 2023 @ Central European University
On Consolation: Navigating Dark Times
Michael Ignatieff @ Seize the Moment Podcast
— May 2023
“Academic freedom: threats within and without”
Michael Ignatieff @ Trinity College Dublin
— October 2022
Latest writing
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The History of My Privileges
We cannot help thinking of our own lives as uniquely our own, but if we look more closely, we begin to see how much we shared with strangers of our own age and situation. If we could forget for a moment what was singular about our lives and concentrate instead on what we experienced with…
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Universal Values at Bay
The moral universalism enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights obliges us to recognize the humanity of others and the reality of their suffering. If that doctrine sounds naive in today’s world, it is because we have allowed malignant spoilers to smother this foundational intuition.
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Why Israel Should Obey Geneva Even When Its Enemies Do Not
If Israel adheres to the Geneva rules, that will help it attain its long-term political goals. Not just the crushing of Hamas but the conduct of the war itself will determine what kind of peace is possible.
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The Question of Collaboration
Perhaps the case really is closed in France. But now that Europe is at war again, the question of collaboration remains before us all.
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Isaiah Berlin – The promise of freedom
Berlin would have warned us against hubris and intolerance, but also against fatalism. In the battle to come, history is on no one’s side. The outcome of this struggle over who owns the meaning of freedom will come down, as it always does, to the eternal question that decides history’s shape: who is prepared to…
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Not politicians, not sanctions – only the battlefield will determine when the war will be over
“How to end the war” is more than the wrong question. Right now, it’s a malign diversion. Instead of sticking with the Ukrainians, instead of asking them what they need, we’re asking them what they’ll settle for. […] The end of the war will not be decided in Washington or London but in Bakhmut, Zaporizhia…
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Epistemological Panic,
or Thinking for YourselfThinking for yourself has never been easy, but the question of whether it is still possible at all is of some moment. The key ideals of liberal democracy—moral independence and intellectual autonomy—depend on it, and my students will not have much experience of either if they end up living in a culture where all of…
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New book out / November 9, 2021
On Consolation
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 portraits of writers, artists and musicians searching for consolation—from the books of Job and Psalms to Albert Camus, Anna Akhmatova, and Primo Levi—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, contending that we can revive these traditions of consolation to meet the anguish and uncertainties of the twenty-first century.
See excerpt (Introduction: After Paradise) →
Order On Consolation
About Michael Ignatieff
Professor
Michael Ignatieff was until recently the Rector and President of Central European University in Budapest. He stepped down at the end of July 2021, to stay as a Professor in the History Department.
Writer
Michael Ignatieff’s major publications are:
- The Ordinary Virtues: Moral Order in a Divided World (2017)
- Fire and Ashes: Success and Failure in Politics (2013)
- The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror (2004)
- Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry (2001)
- The Rights Revolution (2000)
- Isaiah Berlin: A Life (1998)
- Blood and Belonging: Journeys into the New Nationalism (1995)
- Scar Tissue (1992)
- The Needs of Strangers (1984)
Politician
Between 2006 and 2011, Michael Ignatieff 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 for Canada and holds thirteen honorary degrees.