Michael Ignatieff

Unlike the world, the Kennedy School office of Michael Ignatieff, Ph.D. '76, is immaculately tidy. "It's complete illusion," he...

Unlike the world, the Kennedy School office of Michael Ignatieff, Ph.D. '76, is immaculately tidy. "It's complete illusion," he quickly explains. "Underneath, it's all chaos." As a London-based correspondent from 1984 until 2000, Ignatieff lived with chaos, covering the Balkan wars for the BBC, the Observer, and the New Yorker. Now, as Carr professor of human rights practice and director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, his work focuses on one question: when should you use military force to defend human rights? Law, politics, and history converge in this area. A trained historian, he explains that "these disciplines are incorrigible. I don't seem to understand anything unless I know where it came from." Ignatieff's core field of eighteenth-century intellectual history explains "why I'm in human rights, since human rights came out of the European Enlightenment and Rousseau." Ignatieff, whose grandfather was a cabinet minister in czarist Russia, was born in Toronto and grew up as a Canadian foreign-service brat (he spoke perfect Serbo-Croatian at 10 — it vanished by 12.) His second novel, Scar Tissue, about a professor dealing with his mother's Alzheimer's disease, was shortlisted for Britain's prestigious Booker Prize in 1993. A regular contributor to the New York Times Magazine, he has a new book, The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror, due out in April. He and his second wife, Hungarian Zsuzsanna Zsohar, live in Mather House, where he is a resident scholar. Ignatieff skis, skates, and has "all the local vices" — e.g., the Red Sox — and declares that "sitting on the couch, watching pro sports with a beer in my hand, is pretty close to my idea of heaven."

     

Most popular

Shakespeare’s Greatest Rival

Without Christopher Marlowe, there might not have been a Bard.

How MAGA Went Mainstream at Harvard

Trump, TikTok, and the pandemic are reshaping Gen Z politics.

Harvard art historian Jennifer Roberts teaches the value of immersive attention

Teaching students the value of deceleration and immersive attention

Explore More From Current Issue

Man splashing water on his face at outdoor fountain beside woman holding cup near stone building.

Why Heat Waves Make You Miserable

Scientists are studying how much heat and humidity the human body can take.

Renaissance portrait of young man thought to be Christoper Marlowe with light beard, wearing ornate black coat with gold buttons and red patterns.

Shakespeare’s Greatest Rival

Without Christopher Marlowe, there might not have been a Bard.