Selected Reviews of Voltaire's Bastards
USA
"The Triumph of the Technocrats," Camille Paglia, The Washington Post
"Books," Digby Diehl, Playboy
"The Rise of experts brought the decline of reason," Ron Grossman, Chicago Tribune
"How the Experts Turned Voltaire on His Head," Christopher Hitchens, New York Newsday
UK
"Written for the right reason," Bryan Appleyard, The London Times
"The new Age of Reason is illusion and lies," Andrei Navrozov, The European
France
"La drogue de la raison," Pierre Drouin, Le Monde
"Pure critique de la raison," Dominque Durand, Le Canard enchainé
Other International Acclaim:
John Ralston Saul takes his readers on a passionate and personal tour of the follies of our age. The banner of Reason, he claims, can as easily lead to disaster as to victory. Scientists are only one of the groups that can readily identify with this argument.
John C. Polanyi, Winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, 1986
The central thesis of this erudite and brilliantly readable book is that we have now fallen under the insidious grip of the third major ideology of the twentieth century: corporatism's outstanding piece of polemic, which at heart is a plea for a return to a now forgotten set of humanistic values, should, at very least, be read by those who are responsible for determining the curriculum. It might remind them that education is more about teaching people how to read and write. After all, there's not much point in learning to do either if it merely enables you to understand the next redundancy better.
- The Observer
Voltaire's Bastards skewers the West's policy of arms sales to the Third World.
- The Economist
Voltaire's Bastards is a hand grenade disguised as a book. The pages explode with insight, style, and intellectual rigor. John Ralston Saul challenges virtually all of our received wisdom and makes a compelling case that we must begin to rethink our traditional institutions and notions as we move into a new era. The panorama of ideas and information he surveys will leave you challenged, intrigued, and at times troubled.
- The Washington Post
The writer's role, Saul says, is to provide a reflection in which society can see itself. The reflection is an ugly but a thought provoking one. Saul judges society by its effects and its paradoxes. He sees democracies in which few participate politically; free speech hobbled by pressure to conform; an obsession with free competition masking vast subsidized market in armaments; a world of violence in which the number of people killed every day exceeds the daily losses of the French Army in the Great War.
- The International Herald Tribune
This book is so welcome, and so necessary. This is, at the very least, an aid to self-examination, and frankly, anyone who chips away at the corporate wall needs a helping hand.
- Nicholas Lezard, The Guardian, June 13, 1998
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