If you get the access to see history happen, do you understand the history when it does happen? And the answer to that question is no, you dont.

There are lots of nations in the world or national peoples who don't yet have states. They're inside someone else's state and they want a state of their own.

How do you keep war accountable to the American people when war becomes invisible and virtual?

In academic life, false ideas are merely false and useless ones can be fun to play with. In political life, false ideas can ruin the lives of millions and useless ones can waste precious resources. An intellectual's responsibility for his ideas is to follow their consequences wherever they may lead. A politician's responsibility is to master those consequences and prevent them from doing harm. Michael Ignatieff, a former professor at Harvard and contributing writer for the magazine, is a member of Canada's Parliament and deputy leader of the Liberal Party.

Memory is the only afterlife I have ever believed in. But the forgetting inside us cannot be stopped. We are programmed to betray.

Public service does not necessarily mean service in the House of Commons, and public service is not synonymous with partisan political activity. It comes in a thousand colours, but the common denominator is: it's not about me - it's about we.

I distinguish, between nationalism and patriotism.