Fire and Ashes: Success and Failure in Politics

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Description

In 2005 Michael Ignatieff left his life as a creator and professor at Harvard University to go into the combative world of politics back home in Canada. By 2008, he used to be leader of the country’s Liberal Party and poised–will have to the governing Conservatives falter–to turn out to be 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 lifetime of thinking about politics prepare him for the real thing? How did he maintain 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 some 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 truly is, the book could also be a celebration of the political life in all its wild, exuberant variety.

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