Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine and Robert Baldwin
Canada has no better interpreter than prolific writer and thinker John Ralston Saul. Here he argues that Canada did not begin in 1867; indeed, its foundation was laid by two visionary men, Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine and Robert Baldwin. The two leaders of Lower and Upper Canada, respectivel...
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A Fair Country: Telling Truths about Canada
In this startlingly original vision of Canada, thinker John Ralston Saul unveils 3 founding myths. Saul argues that the famous “peace, order, and good government” that supposedly defines Canada is a distortion of the country’s true nature. Every single document before the BNA Ac...
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Joseph Howe and the Battle for the Freedom of Speech
2006 Penguin Books Published in Canada,
In this essay, John Ralston Saul addresses the legacy of Joseph Howe, his famous defense in 1835, and his contributions to a distinctly Canadian position on freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Saul recalls a time when political debate was prioritized in society and covered by the media, and ...
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The Collapse of Globalism and the Reinvention of the World
Proponents of qlobalism predicted that nation states were heading toward irrelevance: that economics. not politics or arms, would determine the course of human events; that growth in international trade would foster prosperous markets that would, in turn abolish poverty and change dictatorships into...
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On Equilibrium: Six Qualities of the New Humanism
John Ralston Saul explains how our different qualities give us the intelligence, self-confidence and practical ability to think and act as responsible individuals. He argues, however, that when certain human qualities are worshipped in isolation they become weaknesses, even forces of destruction or ...
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Reflections of a Siamese Twin: Canada at the End of the Twentieth Century
In a startling exercise of reorientation, John Ralston Saul excavates our Canadian myths - real, false, and denied - and reconciles them with the reality of today's politics, culture and economics. He attacks the denial of place into which our urban centres have fallen, delineates the dramatic diffe...
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The Unconscious Civilization
Published in US, UK, Sweden, Spain, Serbia, Italy, Greece, Germany, France, Canada, Australia,
OUR SOCIETY, John Ralston Saul argues in the 1995 Massey Lectures, is only superficially based on the individual and democracy. Increasingly it is conformist and corporatist, a society in which legitimacy lies with specialist or interest groups and decisions are made through constant negotiations be...
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Le citoyen dans un cul-de-sac?: Anatomie d’une société en crise
1995 Published in Canada,
Cette conférence prononcée le 6 octobre 1995 au Musée de la civilisation inaugurait une série de rencontre-conférences intitulée La démocracie et le citoyen.
« Dans l’espoir de réussir sa carrière, chacun de no...
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The Doubter’s Companion: A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense
1994 Published in USA, Spain, South Korea, Italy, Germany, France, Canada,
A long and distinguished tradition of writers have used the form of a satirical dictionary to undermine the received ideas of their day. Voltaire wrote a sharply humorous "Philosophical Dictionary," while Samuel Johnson's dictionary of the English language was derisive and opinionated. The...
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Voltaire’s Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West
1992 Published in USA, UK, Spain, Russia, Japan, Italy, France, Chile, Canada, Australia,
In a wide-ranging, provocative anatomy of modern society and its origins, John Ralston Saul explores the reason for our deepening sense of crisis and confusion. Throughout the Western world we talk end lessly of individual freedom, yet Saul shows that there has never before been such pressure ...
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