Book dossier

The Warrior's Honour

by Michael Ignatieff

Since the early 1990s, Michael Ignatieff has traveled the world's war zones, from Bosnia to the West Bank, from Afghanistan to central Africa. The Warrior's Honor is a report and a reflection on what he has seen in the places where ethnic war has become a way of life. In a series of vivid portraits, Ignatieff charts the rise of the new moral interventionists - the aid workers, reporters, peacekeepers, Red Cross delegates, and diplomats - who believe that other people's misery, no matter how far away, is of concern to us all. He brings us face-to-face with the new ethnic warriors - the warlords, gunmen, and paramilitary forces - who have escalated postmodern war to an unprecedented level of savagery. From the encounter of these two groups, he draws dramatic and startling realizations about the ambiguous ethics of engagement, the limited force of moral justice in a world of war, and the inevitable clash between those who defend tribal and national loyalties and those who speak the universal language of human rights.