With the collapse of political order around the world, a new international order is emerging, one that is crafted to suit American imperial objectives. In Empire Lite, Michael Ignatieff explores both sides of what he sees as a new global empirethe imperial and the humanitarian. Humanitarian agencies face the dilemma of how to keep their programs from being suborned to imperial interests. Yet they realize it was American air power that made an uneasy peace and humanitarian reconstruction possible, first in Bosnia, then in Kosovo and finally in Afghanistan. Drawing on his own experiences of war zones, and with an extraordinary account of life in Afghanistan, Ignatieff identifies the illusions that make a genuine act of solidarity so difficult and asks what can be done to help people in war-torn societies enjoy the essential right to rule themselves.
