Book Reviews
Two Reviews: A Starting Point
Reviews of Hammarskjöld: A Life by Prof. Michael Ignatieff and Dr. Rowan Williams brilliantly exemplify the range of possible responses to the public life and private concerns of Dag Hammarskjöld. Prof. Ignatieff looks from the perspective of a political scientist and participant in Canadian politics who is not uncomfortable with Hammarskjöld's spirituality; he understands how to honor and include it although it is not his first concern. Dr. Williams, recently returned to university life from years of service as Archbishop of Canterbury, is an exceptionally insightful interpreter of spirituality whose experience in public life underlies his understanding of Hammarskjöld's integration of public service and private spirituality.
In this thoroughly engaging review entitled "The Faith of a Hero," Michael Ignatieff (Harvard and the University of Toronto) explores Hammarskjöld's achievements and challenges at the UN and his searching faith. Published here with the kind permission of
The New York Review of Books.
Rowan Williams, Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge, and recently retired Archbishop of Canterbury, writes with understanding born of experience akin to Dag Hammarskjöld's. "[Hammarskjöld] was there to serve the entire spectrum of nations in the name of a convergent human welfare whose definition no one group owned exclusively." The review is on pp. 2-3.
Josh Jeter, writing in the lively Christian journal
Books & Culture, evokes "a sensitive man in a noisy role; a man who carried a great load but was able . . . to bear it lightly." Published here with the kind permission of the editors at
www.booksandculture.com.
Stephen Williams, writing in an outstanding African monthly, takes the occasion of reviewing
Hammarskjöld: A Life to look at a dramatic episode in North African history: the Suez Crisis of 1956-57. It was the origin of UN peacekeeping forces, still at work today in many parts of the world.
Andrew Gilmour, a senior official in the Office of the UN Secretary-General with a broad portfolio of responsibilities, reviews
Hammarskjöld: A Life with unique insight into Hammarskjöld's permanent importance to the UN and the status today of challenges he faced years ago.
Winslow Myers, a most thoughtful author in the field of peace studies, focuses on Hammarskjöld as an urgent example and inspiration for today's diplomats
Tad Crawford, publisher and novelist, engages in this review with the two dominant aspects of Dag Hammarskjöld, tireless peacemaker and man of spirit.
The Jesuit university professor Thomas Murphy, writing in an outstanding U.S. Catholic weekly, offers a wealth of insight drawing on his religious background.
James George, a Canadian diplomat now retired who knew Hammarskjöld personally in the UN years, sheds light "in many directions," to use a phrase often heard from Hammarskjöld.
Republished with the permission of Parabola Magazine.
A brilliantly insightful review by Mats Svegfors, a senior figure in Swedish newspapers and radio, not least in its assessment of Dag Hammarskjöld’s renewed reception in Sweden.
