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51
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
41/100Critics
61/100Scholars
Author:
Michael Ignatieff
Publisher:
Metropolitan Books
Date:
November 9, 2021
When we lose someone we love, when we suffer loss or defeat, when catastrophe strikes_war, famine, pandemic_we go in search of consolation. Once the province of priests and philosophers, the language of consolation has largely vanished from our modern vocabulary, and the places where it was offered, houses of religion, are often empty. Rejecting the solace of ancient religious texts, humanity since the sixteenth century has increasingly placed its faith in science, ideology, and the therapeutic. How do we console each other and ourselves in an age of unbelief?
What The Reviewers Say
Michael Ignatieff pushes aside this commercial, foamy emotion [of happiness] and dives into the murkier waters beneath.
... for those who find consolation as elusive, if not as impossible, as a political solution to our darkening times, Ignatieff’s book makes an eloquent and empathetic case for us to look a bit longer.
Thoughtful.
[A] searching meditation.
