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Blood and Belonging (Magill Book Reviews)

Michael Ignatieff’s BLOOD AND BELONGING: JOURNEYS INTO THE NEW NATIONALISM is a companion book to a BBC documentary series he produced which was broadcast in the United States on PBS. It concerns his travels through six regions of the world wrecked by nationalist passions. As such, BLOOD AND BELONGING is at once an informed meditation on political forces transforming the international scene, and a highly personal quest for meaning in a freshly disordered world.

Ignatieff sees himself as the antithesis of a nationalist, calling himself a cosmopolitan. A descendent of Russian aristocrats, who grew up in Canada, was educated in the United States, and works in Great Britain, Ignatieff dreams of a world order where individuals could live and flourish wherever they desire, regardless of state and ethnic boundaries. He found himself surprised and disturbed by the efflorescence of nationalism around the globe following the end of the Cold War.

To better understand this trend, Ignatieff explored a handful of distinctive nationalist movements. In Croatia and Serbia, he negotiated the treacherous battle lines of a fratricidal war between peoples who speak the same language and lived for years together in amity. A visit to Germany highlighted the difficulties Germans are having in defining a viable national identity in the wake of reunification. Similar problems face the Ukrainians, a nation reborn after hundreds of years of integration with Russia. In Quebec, Ignatieff confronted the paradox of a people demanding ever more autonomy, while denying the same privilege to native peoples within their borders. In Kurdistan, Ignatieff sympathized with a borderless people, yearning for a state to protect them from the genocidal ambitions of their neighbors. Finally, a tour through Northern Ireland reveals the ironic tragedy of the Protestant Loyalists, separated only by religion from their countrymen, and fiercely devoted to a motherland anxious to disown them. Ignatieff concludes by acknowledging the continuing hold of tribalism on the human soul, and the persistent willingness to use force to express it. His book stands as a sober reminder that we have not grown beyond our history.

Sources for Further Study

Booklist. XC, March 15, 1994, p. 1308.

Books in Canada. XXIII, March, 1994, p. 41.

The Canadian Forum. LXXII, January, 1994, p. 5.

Library Journal. CXIX, March 1, 1994, p. 104.

Los Angeles Times. April 7, 1994, p. E3.

The New York Review of Books. XLI, May 26, 1994, p. 44.

The New York Times Book Review. XCIX, April 10, 1994, p. 7.

Publishers Weekly. CCXLI, February 21, 1994, p. 242.

The Times Literary Supplement. February 11, 1994, p. 3.

The Washington Post Book World. XXIV, April 10, 1994, p. 5.

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