Friday Book: The Virtual War That Ended with a Virtual Victory ; Virtual War: Kosovo and beyond by Michael Ignatieff (Chatto & Windus, Pounds 12.99)

Beginning of article

MICHAEL IGNATIEFF reported the Kosovo war for The New Yorker, and much of Virtual War stems from his essays for that journal, drawing in particular on his experiences as he shadowed some of the key players. Most notable are his memoirs of Richard Holbrooke, General Wesley Clark and the war crimes prosecutor Louise Arbour, expertly supplemented with his observations and interviews from Pristina to Belgrade via the refugee camps of the Macedonian border and the scenes of massacres in Kosovo.

But Virtual War goes well beyond this and, though it shows signs of hurried writing, its real value is in its attempt to assess whether the Kosovo war was really something new. For 11 …