Ignatieff's early childhood was spent in New York, Washington, Belgrade, and London, the capitals where his father, Canadian diplomat George IGNATIEFF, was posted. The young Ignatieff completed his secondary schooling at Upper Canada College before going to the UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO, where he received a bachelor's degree in history in 1969. In 1976, Ignatieff received a PhD in history from Harvard, with a thesis on the British prison system during the industrial revolution. After two years teaching at the UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA, he accepted a research fellowship at King's College, Cambridge.

Ignatieff left the university in 1984 to work as a writer and broadcaster in London, England. Over the next two decades, he became one of the leading public intellectuals in the English-speaking world. He was the host of Thinking Aloud and The Late Show, talk shows broadcast on BBC television. He was a weekly columnist with the London Observer and wrote for other major periodicals, including The New Yorker, The Financial Times, The Guardian, Dissent, and The New York Times Magazine.

Ignatieff wrote several volumes of fiction and non-fiction. The Russian Album (1987), in which he traced the history of four generations of his family, won the Governor General's award in Canada. His highly-praised novel, Scar Tissue (1993), told the story of a woman suffering from dementia from the point of view of the son who cared for her. Again, there was an element of family history: Ignatieff's own mother, Alison, had suffered from Alzheimer's and his brother Andrew had looked after her. Blood and Belonging: Journeying into the New Nationalism (1993) and Virtual War: Kosovo and Beyond (2000) both won major awards. Isaiah Berlin: A Life (1998), a gracefully-written biography of the liberal philosopher, won widespread acclaim.

Ignatieff left Britain in 2000 to take up a position as director of Carr Centre for Human Rights Policy at Harvard. He endorsed the US-led invasion of Iraq in a 2003 article in the New York Times Magazine, arguing that war was a legitimate last resort to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and to end the tyranny of Saddam Hussein, a position he repeated in Empire Lite: Nation-Building in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan (2003).

After living abroad for 36 years, Ignatieff returned to Canada in 2005 to become visiting professor in human rights policy at the University of Toronto and senior fellow at the university's Munk Centre for International Studies. He won the federal LIBERAL PARTY's nomination in Etobicoke-Lakeshore and was elected to Parliament in January 2006. Just three months later, Ignatieff became a candidate for his party's leadership. As the front-runner, he quickly came under attack, criticized for his long absence from Canada and for having supported the American war in Iraq. Opponents also claimed that Ignatieff supported torture, pointing to a 2004 article in which he argued that "coercive interrogations" might be necessary on occasion "to defeat evil." Ignatieff vehemently denied the allegation, insisting he was opposed to torture. At the leadership convention in December 2006, Ignatieff placed second to Stéphane DION, who quickly appointed the runner-up as deputy leader.

Ignatieff backed away from his support for the Iraq war in an August 2007 article in the New York Times Magazine. His original position, he said, was based in part on emotions born of a 1992 trip to Iraq, where he saw the brutal way Saddam had treated his country's Kurdish population.

Dion announced he would step down following the Liberal party's October 2008 electoral defeat, and Ignatieff again declared himself a candidate for the leadership. After his rivals withdrew from the race, Ignatieff was appointed acting leader on 10 December.

Ignatieff, Michael
Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff speaks with the media during a news conference in Ottawa following his appointment as interim leader on 10 Dec 2008 (photo by Adrian Wyld, courtesy CP Archives).

Author STEPHEN AZZI

Links to Other Sites
Liberal Party of Canada
The official website of the Liberal Party of Canada.

Michael Ignatieff
A biography of Liberal MP Michael Ignatieff from his website.

Political Parties and Leaders
Profiles and related data about past and present leaders of Canadian political parties. From the Parliament of Canada website.

Members of Parliament
This site contains information about Members of Parliament and their roles, chair occupants, ministers, constituencies, elections, and election candidates. From the website of the Parliament of Canada.

CPAC
CPAC, the Cable Public Affairs Channel, provides a window on Parliament, politics, and public affairs in Canada. Click on "Telling Times" to view a series of short historical documentaries that showcase pivotal Canadian events.

How Michael Ignatieff became Canadian
The feature article about the history of the Ignatieff family. From the vancouversun.com website.