TLRH | 2022 Annual Edmund Burke Lecture | Professor Michael Ignatieff

From October 6, 2022, Professor Michael Ignatieff delivered the
Annual Edmund Burke Lecture for 2022, 'Democracy and the Legacy of
Revolutionary Violence.' Michael Ignatieff is a Canadian writer,
historian and former politician, now Rector Emeritus of the Central
European University in Vienna and a professor in the history
department. He has been a leader of the Liberal Party of Canada as
well as a professor at the Kennedy School, Harvard, and is the
author of Isaiah Berlin: A Life, The Needs of Strangers, On
Consolation, and many other works.  ‘All democracies born of
revolution—France, America, and Ireland, for example—have to find
ways to reckon with their revolutionary origins, and with the
violence that attended their birth. Since revolutions empower the
people to rise up in defence of their rights, revolutionary origins
can continue to inspire succeeding generations to defend theirs,
but they can also pose a continuing challenge to the stability of
democratic institutions. Edmund Burke’s reflections on the
revolutions of 1688 in Britain, the American Revolution of 1776,
and the French Revolution of 1789 can help us understand how
contemporary democracies should handle the often combustible
heritage of revolutionary origins.’ Learn more at:
https://www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub/