The Needs of Strangers

This thought-provoking book uncovers a crisis in the political imagination. Specifically, The Needs of Strangers identifies a wide-spread failure on the part of humanity to provide the passionate sense of community "in which our need for belonging can be met." Seeking answers to fundamental questions on the nature of modern humanism, Ignatieff writes vividly about both key ideas and the people who have tried to live by them—from Augustine to Bosch, from Rousseau to Simone Weil.

Incisive and moving, this book returns philosophy to its proper place, as a guide to the art of being human. As the author writes herein: "Being human is an accomplishment like playing an instrument. It takes practice. The keys must be mastered. The old score must be committed to memory. It is a skill we can forget. A little noise can make us forget the notes. The best of us is historical; the best of us is fragile. Being human is a second nature which history taught us, and which terror and deprivation can batter us into forgetting."