To console someone to be a source of meaning and understanding amidst the pain and loss of life is one of the hardest things a person can do. More and more it's being sought after, not in religious institutions, but through individuals and personal networks. Less and less it's being associated with political traditions, particularly those on the left that tell us to fight, to resist the status quo rather than to accept.

Michael Ignatieff explores how those of us who live in a secular world, without the comforting thought of an afterlife free from suffering, have found a modern form of consolation through the religious structures of the past. Using the history of the psalms from the Jewish and Christian traditions, Ignatieff revives these masterpieces to understand the power of their words, and their limits.

On Consolation is tragically relevant to our current age, but that is what makes it all the more necessary. Through this book, we learn what it means to find consolation to balance struggle with submission, acceptance of defeat with the lasting light of hope.