How might we mend the world? Charles Blattberg suggests a "new patriotism," one that reconciles conflict through a form of dialogue that prioritizes conversation over negotiation and the common good over victory. This patriotism can be global as well as local, left as well as right. Blattberg's is a genuinely original philosophical voice. The essays collected here discuss how to re-conceive the political spectrum, where "deliberative deomocrats" go wrong, why human rights language is tragically counterproductive, how nationalism is not really secular, how many nations should share a single state, a new approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict, and why Canada might have something to teach about the "war on terror." We also learn about the right way to deny a role to principles in ethics, how to distinguish between the good and the beautiful, the way humor works, the rabbinic nature of modernism, the difference between good, bad, great, and evil, why Plato's dialogues are not really dialogues, and why most philosophers are actually artists.

Charles Blattberg is associate professor, Department of Political Science, Universit? de Montr?al. Educated at Toronto, McGill, the Sorbonne, and Oxford, he is the author of From Pluralist to Patriotic Politics: Putting Practice First and Shall We Dance?

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A serious, thought-provoking, and interesting collection of insights that reflects a profound and intimate acquaintance with an impressive range of scholars, philosophers, artists, and authors. Blattberg is a creative thinker, often poetic. Dan Avnon, Hebrew University of Jerusalem