Fire and Ashes

September 30, 2013
Ignatieff offers a cautionary tale for public intellectuals who would be politicians. The Toronto native, currently a professor at the University of Toronto and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, served as head of Canada’s Liberal Party until 2011, when he lost his own seat in the party’s worst showing in its history. Ignatieff had left Harvard in 2005 to enter Canadian politics and swiftly rose through the ranks to become leader of his party, on the cusp of becoming the next Prime Minister, only to face a huge electoral defeat and million-dollar campaign debt. Wised up to the rough and tumble of political life, he reflects on what he did right and wrong, and shows why getting elected, and then enacting reforms, is hard work. “Red meat must be thrown to the hounds,” he muses. This thin volume could have easily been a vanity book, but it’s more than that. An erudite and civilized man, Ignatieff ends his tale with surprisingly upbeat advice to aspiring politicians.