100,000+ Books, Games & Puzzles in-stock πŸ‡³πŸ‡Ώ

Overnight NZ-wide delivery on in-stock orders πŸš€

The Needs of Strangers

On Solidarity and the Politics of Being Human
Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
The Needs of Strangers by Michael Ignatieff explores the intersection of politics and human emotions, examining how societies address the fundamental needs of individuals. Ignatieff delves into the historical and philosophical dimensions of what it means to care for others, reflecting on how personal and communal needs have been regarded over centuries. This thought-provoking book offers insight into the moral obligations we hold towards strangers in the broader social fabric.
Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
$3299
AVAILABLE WITH SUPPLIER Ships from our Auckland warehouse within 4-6 weeks

Found a better price? Request a price match

Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

You might enjoy this book if you are interested in exploring how human needs and the basic aspects of life, such as community and belonging, intersect with political and philosophical ideas. This thought-provoking read weaves together insights from current affairs and timeless philosophical questions, making it appealing to those who appreciate reflective and insightful discourse on societal matters.

Book Hero thinking about your next read

Reissue of a profound exploration of the concept of human need by the esteemed author of On Consolation

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

What does a person need, not just to survive, but to flourish? In this profound, searching book, Michael Ignatieff explores the many human needs that go beyond basic sustenance: for love, for respect, for community and consolation. In a society of strangers, how might we find a common language to express such needs?

Ignatieff's lucid, penetrating enquiry takes him back to great works of philosophy, literature and art, from St. Augustine to Hieronymus Bosch to Shakespeare. Reissued with a new preface, The Needs of Strangers builds to a moving meditation on the possibility of accommodating claims of difference within a politics based on common need.

Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?

The Needs of Strangers by Michael Ignatieff is praised for its urgent and convincing prose, making the discussion of its ideas highly accessible. It is described as beautifully written, with thoughtful insights and elegant meditations on human needs.

Book Hero reading reviews

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781782279082

Publisher: Pushkin Press

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 31 August 2023

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Pushkin Press

Audience: General / adult, Tertiary education, Professional and scholarly

DIMENSIONS

Width: 129.0mm

Height: 198.0mm

Weight: 250g

Pages: 176

About the Author

Michael Ignatieff is a writer, historian and former politician. He has taught at Cambridge, Oxford, the University of Toronto and Harvard and is currently university professor at Central European University in Vienna. His books, which have been translated into twelve languages, include Blood and Belonging, Isaiah Berlin, The Needs of Strangers and The Russian Album, all published or forthcoming with Pushkin Press, and On Consolation.

Also by Michael Ignatieff

View all
  • On Consolation
    As read on BBC Radio 4's 'Book of the Week', On Consolation by Michael Ignatieff offers a deeply poignant and thought-provoking journey through the ways in which humanity has grappled with the ageless quest for solace in the face of profound loss and suffering. Ignatieff explores how writers, composers, and artists have sought comfort and resilience amidst life's hardest trials,...
    Paperback
    $2499
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • The Russian Album
    Poring over his grandparents' memoirs, grainy photographs of his distinguished ancestors, and relating family lore passed from father to son, Michael Ignatieff begins a moving journey to come to terms with his inheritance that is bound up with the violent tumult of Russian history. With great care and complexity, Ignatieff reconstructs a vanished way of life. Beginning in the opulent...
    Paperback
    $3299
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Blood & Belonging
    In 1993, Michael Ignatieff set out on a journey to the former Yugoslavia, Ukraine, Germany, Quebec, Kurdistan, and Northern Ireland to explore the many faces of modern nationalism. Why, after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War, were so many nation-states disintegrating into ethnic conflict? What did nationalism promise that so many were willing...
    Paperback
    $3299
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • The Ordinary Virtues
    Winner of the ZΓ³calo Book PrizeA New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice "Combines powerful moral arguments with superb storytelling." β€”New Statesman What moral values do we hold in common? As globalization draws us together economically, are the things we value converging or diverging? These twin questions led Michael Ignatieff to embark on a three-year, eight-nation journey in search of...
    Paperback
    $4299
    Available
    Ships in 3-4 weeks
  • Fire and Ashes
    In 2005, Michael Ignatieff left his life as a writer and professor at Harvard University to enter the combative world of politics back home in Canada. By 2008, he was leader of the country's Liberal Party and poisedβ€”should the governing Conservatives falterβ€”to become Canada's next Prime Minister. It never happened. Today, after a bruising electoral defeat, Ignatieff is back where...
    Hardback
    $8599
    Available
    Ships in 3-4 weeks
  • Isaiah Berlin
    Isaiah Berlin was one of the great thinkers and most electrifying speakers of his time. A magnetic public intellectual and beacon of liberal philosophy, he gained astonishing first-hand experience of some of the pivotal events of the twentieth century. Berlin refused to write an autobiography, but he did agree to talk about himself: in the last decade of his life,...
    Paperback
    Sold Out

More from Politics & Current Affairs

View all
  • New Release
    One Last Question, Prime Minister
    From Muldoon to Luxon, untold stories from the House of Parliament Barry Soper has spent close to five decades questioning New Zealand's prime ministers.From the imposing, larger-than-life characters of Rob Muldoon and David Lange, to the golden age of Helen Clark and John Key, and the post-Covid era of Jacinda Ardern and the 'Chrises', Soper's insight and nose for a...
    Paperback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $3999
    (6)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • New Release
    Regime Change
    From the two reporters who have covered him more closely than perhaps anyone else over the past decade comes this definitive portrait of Donald Trump in the White House and the first year of his second presidency. Based on hundreds of interviews and unprecedented reporting from deep within the administration’s most closely guarded rooms, Regime Change takes the reader into...
    Paperback
    $3299
    Elsewhere:
    $4299
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • New Release
    A Different Kind of Power
    #1 New Zealand bestseller #1 Amazon bestseller #2 Audible bestseller #3 New York Times bestseller #3 Sunday Times bestseller #4 Australian bestseller From the former prime minister of New Zealand, then the world’s youngest female head of government and just the second to give birth in office, comes a deeply personal memoir chronicling her extraordinary rise and offering inspiration to...
    Paperback
    $3200
    Elsewhere:
    $4000
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • A Different Kind of Power
    Ockham Winner
    A Different Kind of Power
    What if we could redefine leadership? What if kindness came first? Jacinda Ardern grew up the daughter of a police officer in small-town New Zealand, but as the 40th Prime Minister of her country, she commanded global respect for her empathetic leadership that put people first. This is the remarkable story of how a Mormon girl plagued by self-doubt made...
    Hardback
    $4799
    Elsewhere:
    $5999
    (7)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Signed Copy
    Go Hard or Go Home
    From the front bench to rock bottom:Β Go Hard or Go HomeΒ is Kiri Allan's fearless memoir of ambition, disruption and survival in NZ politics and beyond. Kiri Allan's six-year political career spanned some of the most challenging times in recent history. Events a government might encounter once in a generation stacked up: a terrorist attack, a volcanic eruption, destructive and deadly...
    Paperback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $4000
    Pre-order
    Out 4 Aug 2026
  • New Release
    Suicidal Empathy
    The bestselling author of The Parasitic Mind shows why empathy in politics leads to civilizational collapse. What happens when a society elevates victimhood to a virtue and decides that punishment is cruel? You get the disease Dr. Gad Saad calls suicidal empathy. And the West may be terminally infected. In his new book, Suicidal Empathy, Saad unleashes a blistering critique...
    Paperback
    $3099
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • New Release
    The Day After: How to Wield Power in a Post-Trump World
    From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Shameless, Brian Tyler Cohen explores how Republicans have abused power, how Democrats have refused to exercise power when they held it, and how progressives should wield power if they are fortunate enough to win a free and fair election in a post-Trump world. The Day After: How to Wield Power in...
    Paperback
    $3099
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Careless People
    Shocking and darkly funny, Careless People gives you a front-row seat to the decisions that are shaping our world and the people who make them. Welcome to Facebook. Sarah Wynn-Williams, a young diplomat from New Zealand, pitched for her dream job. She saw Facebook's potential and knew it could change the world for the better. But, when she got there...
    Paperback
    $2800
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Discipline
    Silence is complicity, but how do we confront the cost of speaking up? Sydney, May 2021. Ashraf is an academic whose career and personal life are in freefall. Hannah is a young journalist struggling to honour the voices of her community. When a Year 12 Al-Bayinnah College student is arrested for protesting a university's ties to an Israeli weapons manufacturer,...
    Paperback
    $4000
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Shattered Lands
    'A sparkling debut by an outstanding young historian' – PETER FRANKOPAN 'This book is a revelation … both original and important' – MISHAL HUSAIN A history of modern South Asia told through five partitions that reshaped it. As recently as 1928, a vast swathe of Asia – India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Nepal, Bhutan, Yemen, Oman, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, and...
    Paperback
    $3699
    Elsewhere:
    $4500
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • The Handmaid's Tale
    The bestselling dystopian classic that became a cultural phenomenon and inspired an award-winning TV series. THE SUNDAY TIMES NO. 1 BESTSELLER Go back to where it all began with the dystopian novel behind the award-winning TV series. 'As relevant today as it was when Atwood wrote it.' Guardian I believe in the resistance as I believe there can be no...
    Paperback
    $2000
    Elsewhere:
    $2400
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • This Way Up
    The debut book from the YouTube sensation and all-round cartographical nerds, The Map Men! In their long-awaited debut, YouTube’s Map Men bring their highly infectious enthusiasm for everything map-related to the printed page for the very first time, in a brilliantly entertaining and eye-catching tome. Packed with humour and fascinating facts, This Way Up takes a deep dive into the...
    Paperback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $3999
    In Stock
    Ships today

Why buy from us?

Book Hero is not a chain store or big box retailer. We're an independent 100% NZ-owned business on a mission to help more Kiwis rediscover a love of books and reading!

Service & Delivery

Service & Delivery

Our warehouse in Auckland holds over 100,000 books, toys, board games and puzzles in-stock so you're not waiting for your order to arrive from overseas.

Auckland Bookstore

Auckland Bookstore

We're primarily an online store, but for your convenience you can pick up your order for free from our bookstore, which is right next door to our warehouse in Hobsonville.

Our Gifting Service

Our Gifting Service

Books make wonderful thoughtful gifts and we're here to help with gift-wrapping and cards. We can even send your gift directly to your loved one.