After a weekend of remembering the fall of the Berlin Wall and the removal of a foundation stone of the larger edifice of communism, it is fitting to mark the publication of a discerning and deeply reflective book on the morality of compromise. For in considering compromise as a political act, Avishai Margalit refers to great moral moments that include the Russian revolution, which created the communist world, and the rise of Nazism. "They created a change in the world order which in turn resulted in grave moral consequences . . . [paving] the way to unparalleled murderous regimes."

At the centre of Margalit's concern here is an attempt to define those political compromises that are permissible, and those that are not. At the core of that reflection lies the morality or otherwise of compromises with the great tyrannies of the early and mid-20th century, in particular those made by two British prime ministers.