New Releases by John Ralston Saul

Canada has no greater interpreter and champion than John Ralston Saul, who for years has been challenging our common notions of Canada. These four books examine our history and myths, our relationships and modern reality, and together brilliantly portray a unique and remarkable country. Reflections of a Siamese Twin In Reflections of a Siamese Twin, Saul turns his eye to an examination of Canada itself. Caught up in crises—political, economic, and social—Canada continues to flounder, unable to solve or even really identify its problems. Instead, we assert absolute differences between ourselves: we are English or we are French; Natives or Europeans; early immigrants or newly arrived; from the east or from the west. Or we bow to ideologies and deny all differences in the name of nationalism, unity, or equality. In a startling exercise in reorientation, John Ralston Saul makes sense of Canadian myths—real, false, denied—and reconciles them with the reality of today’s politics, culture, and economics. A Fair Country In this startlingly original vision of Canada, John Ralston Saul argues that Canada is a Métis nation, heavily influenced and shaped by Aboriginal ideas: Egalitarianism, a proper balance between individual and group, and a penchant for negotiation over violence are all Aboriginal values that Canada absorbed. An obstacle to our progress, Saul argues, is that Canada has an increasingly ineffective elite, a colonial non-intellectual business elite that doesn’t believe in Canada. It is critical that we recognize these aspects of the country in order to rethink its future. The Comeback Historic moments are always uncomfortable, Saul writes in this impassioned argument, calling on all of us to embrace and support the comeback of Aboriginal peoples. This, he says, is the great issue of our time—the most important missing piece in the building of Canada. The events that began late in 2012 with the Idle No More movement were not just a rough patch in Aboriginal relations with the rest of Canada. What is happening between Aboriginals and non-Aboriginals is not about guilt or sympathy or failure or romanticization of the past. It is about citizens’ rights. It is about rebuilding relationships that were central to the creation of Canada. These relationships are just as important to its continued existence. Wide in scope but piercing in detail, The Comeback presents a powerful portrait of modern Aboriginal life in Canada illustrated by a remarkable selection of letters, speeches, and writings by Aboriginal leaders and thinkers, showcasing the extraordinarily rich, moving, and stable indigenous point of view across the centuries. Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine and Robert Baldwin Here, Saul argues that modern Canada did not begin in 1867; rather its foundation was laid years earlier by two visionary men, Louis-Hipplyte LaFontaine and Robert Baldwin. Opposites in temperament and driven by intense experiences of love and tragedy, together they developed principles and programs that would help unite the country. After the 1841 union, the two leaders of Lower and Upper Canada worked to create a reformist movement for responsible government run by elected citizens instead of a colonial governor. During the “Great Ministry” of 1848 to 1851—despite violent opposition—they set about creating a more equitable nation. They revamped judicial institutions, established a public education system, made bilingualism official, and designed a network of public roads. Writing with verve and deep convictions, Saul restores these two extraordinary Canadians to rightful prominence.

Once again, John Ralston Saul presents the story of Canada’s past so that we may better understand its present – and imagine a better future. Historic moments are always uncomfortable, Saul writes in this impassioned argument, calling on all of us to embrace and support the comeback of Aboriginal peoples. This, he says, is the great issue of our time – the most important missing piece in the building of Canada. The events that began late in 2012 with the Idle No More movement were not just a rough patch in Aboriginal relations with the rest of Canada. What is happening today between Aboriginals and non-Aboriginals is not about guilt or sympathy or failure or romanticization of the past. It is about citizens’ rights. It is about rebuilding relationships that were central to the creation of Canada. These relationships are just as important to its continued existence. The centrality of Aboriginal issues and peoples has the potential to open up a more creative way of imagining ourselves and a more honest narrative for Canada. Wide in scope but piercing in detail, The Comeback presents a powerful portrait of modern Aboriginal life in Canada, in contrast with the perceived failings so often portrayed in politics and in media. Saul illustrates his arguments by compiling a remarkable selection of letters, speeches and writings by Aboriginal leaders and thinkers, showcasing the extraordinarily rich, moving and stable indigenous point of view across the centuries.

In this provocative analysis of modern society, John Ralston Saul shows that throughout the West there is a crisis, due largely to our blind faith in reason. Instead of a basis for ethical behavior, reason is often reduced to mere practicality. If we continue to allow process-minded experts, “Voltaire’s bastards,” to run society, we risk the breakdown of our legal, financial, and cultural systems, thus endangering our societies.

"How are citizens to enter into a public debate if the concepts which define our society and decide the manner in which we are governed are open neither to understanding nor to questioning?" According to bestselling novelist and essayist John Ralston Saul, the ramifications of asking this question are enormous. We live in an era of specialization, where decision makers, administrators, and process-minded experts have fortified their positions of authority by insulating themselves from public accountability. An important instrument in their ascension has been language; or more precisely, a language so technically specific and laden with jargon that it has isolated the individual citizen.

This international bestseller and “intellectual tour de force” (The Montreal Gazette) is both an attack on our weakness for ideologies and a manual for humanist action.

Argues that blind faith in reason has resulted in problems in every phase of social life, suggests reason is an administrative method rather than a moral force, and proposes some solutions.

From the author of Voltaire''s Bastards comes a philosophical examination of how corporatism has become so deeply ingrained into our society, how it''s destroying democracy, and how we can fight against it. In this intellectual tour de force John Ralston Saul argues that our society is only superficially based on the individual and democracy, and the West now toils unconsciously in the grip of a stifling “corporatist” structure that serves the needs of business managers and technocrats as it promotes the segmentation of society into competing interest groups and ethnic blocks.

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. These early dictionaries and encyclopedias were really weapons in a struggle for the soul of civilization between forces of humanistic enlightenment and the forces of orthodoxy and dogmatism. Their authors attacked and exposed the half-truths of their day by showing that it was possible to think differently about the social and political arrangements that everyone took for granted. But as John Ralston Saul argues in this decidedly unorthodox book, modern dictionaries have once again been captured by the forces of orthodoxy—albeit this time a rationalist orthodoxy. Our language has become as predictable, fragmented, and rhetorical as it was in the 18th century, divided as it is by special interest groups into dialects of expertise that are hermetically sealed off and inaccessible to citizens. In The Doubter''s Companion, a maru00advelous subversive contribution to the great 18th century tradition of the humanist dictionary, Saul skewers and discredits the accepted content of common terms like Advertising, Academics, and Air Conditioning (defined as "an efficient means for spreading disease in enclosed public spaces"); Cannibal, Conservative, and Croissant; Dandruff, Death, and Dictionary ("opinions presented as truth in alphabetical order"); and several hundred others, including Biography ("a respectable form of pornography"), Museum ("safe storage for stolen objects"), and Manners ("people are always splendid when they''re dead"). There is much in this volume that will stimulate, offend, provoke, perplex, and entertain. But Saul deploys these tactics of guerilla lexicography to advance the more serious purpose of reclaiming public language from the stultifying dialects of modern expertise.

In Dark Diversions, acclaimed author John Ralston Saul stages a black comedy of international proportions that takes the reader from New York to Paris to Morocco to Haiti. When he''s not encountering dictators in Third World hot spots, Saul''s unnamed journalist narrator moves in privileged circles on both sides of the Atlantic, insinuating himself into the lives of well-to-do aristocrats. Through his exploits we experience a fascinating world of secret lovers, exiled princesses, death by veganism, and religious heresies. The emotional fireworks of these inhabitants of the First World are sharply juxtaposed with the political infighting of the dictators and the corruption, double-dealing, and fawning that attend them. But as he becomes further enmeshed in these worlds, the outsider status of the narrator grows more ambiguous: Is he a documentarian of privileged foibles and fundamental inequity, or an embodiment of the very "dark diversions" he chronicles?

Canada has no better interpreter than brilliant writer and thinker John Ralston Saul. Here he argues that modern Canada did not begin in 1867; rather its foundation was laid years earlier by two visionary men, Louis-Hipplyte LaFontaine and Robert Baldwin. Opposites in temperament and driven by intense experiences of love and tragedy, together they developed principles and programs that would help unite the country. After the 1841 union the two leaders of Lower and Upper Canada worked to create a reformist movement for responsible government run by elected citizens instead of a colonial governor. During the “Great Ministry” of 1848-51, despite violent opposition, they set about creating a more equitable nation. They revamped judicial institutions, established a public education system, made bilingualism official, and designed a network of public roads. Writing with verve and deep convictions, Saul restores these two extraordinary Canadians to rightful prominence.

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, respectively, worked together after the 1841 Union to lead a reformist movement for responsible government run by elected citizens instead of a colonial governor. But it was during the "Great Ministry" of 1848—51 that the two politicians implemented laws that created a more equitable country. They revamped judicial institutions, created a public education system, made bilingualism official, designed a network of public roads, began a public postal system, and reformed municipal governance. Faced with opposition, and even violence, the two men— polar opposites in temperament—united behind a set of principles and programs that formed modern Canada. Writing with verve and deep conviction, Saul restores these two extraordinary Canadians to rightful prominence.

In 1999, John Ralston Saul began predicting that globalism would collapse. In 2005, he laid out this scenario in The Collapse of Globalism: and the Reinvention of the World Now he has enlarged the book, showing how today''s crisis came about and suggesting what to do next. In this new edition, Saul describes the current financial crisis as a mere boil to be lanced. The far more serious problem is that the West—driven by most of its economists, managers, consultants, and columnists—remains stuck on outdated ideas of growth, wealth creation, and trade expansion. They are still trying to limit the debate to a narrow choice between protectionism and free trade and are concentrated on old-fashioned stimulation. Public policy has been dominated by the people who created this crisis. Saul envisions a new sort of wealth creation and growth, and in place of reaction, advocates new forms of action.

In this startlingly original vision of Canada, renowned thinker John Ralston Saul argues that Canada is a Métis nation, heavily influenced and shaped by Aboriginal ideas: Egalitarianism, a proper balance between individual and group, and a penchant for negotiation over violence are all Aboriginal values that Canada absorbed. An obstacle to our progress, Saul argues, is that Canada has an increasingly ineffective elite, a colonial non-intellectual business elite that doesn''t believe in Canada. It is critical that we recognize these aspects of the country in order to rethink its future.

Globalization is now officially dead. Its collapse has left us with a paradox--a chaotic vacuum. Governments and citizens are unexpectedly reasserting their national interests. The U.S. appears determined to ignore its critics. Europe struggles with racism, terrorism and renewed internal nationalism. Elsewhere, the world looks for answers to African debt, the aids epidemic, and fundamentalism. As well as analyzing Globalism''s negative aspects, Saul also examines its successes, such as the astonishing growth in world trade and the rise of India and China. Insightful and prophetic, "The Collapse of Globalism" is one of the seminal books of our time.

On 20 March 2004, John Ralston Saul delivered the inaugural Joseph Howe lecture at King''s College School of Journalism in Halifax, Nova Scotia. One of Canada''s foremost thinkers on issues of media, politics and society, Saul spoke to the legacy of Joseph Howe, his famous defense in 1835, and of his contributions to a distinctly Canadian position on freedom of speech and freedom of the press. His speech recalls a time when political debate was prioritized in society and covered by the media, and when the democratic foundations of this country were first articulated and then pursued via social reforms. "We''re curious. And we''re actually not in a rush," says Saul of our current situation. Why then, with the collective level of education and individual life expectancy steadily on the rise, have we not allocated more time to engaging in public debate of ideas and to covering these debates in the media? Why, when the creation of Canada as a country is still remembered as the result of all-night discussions and passionate engagement, have we not chosen to continue discussion simply as a means of maintaining an active, conscious citizenry? Saul applauds the examples of responsible, courageous investigative journalism in evidence today, and urges a wider move away from the results-focused, low-content buzz that comprises so much of mainstream media both in print and on television, and which stands in direct contradiction with participatory democracy and with freedom of the press. Cutting through murky constructs like intellectual-property rights and access to information, he identifies the journalistic challenge of locating shapes in the mass of information and beneath the misleading hype around secrets. In a style that is highly articulate, humorous and emphatic, John Ralston Saul provides a succinct, relevant look at Canadian history, our current whereabouts, and an ambitious rally for participatory democracy and intelligent media for the future.

Il y a trente ans, la globalisation surgissait, balayant tout sur son passage. Ses apôtres, les néolibéraux, proclamaient que ce mouvement était inéluctable et que, pour leur plus grand bonheur, toutes les sociétés seraient désormais organisées autour d''un seul élément : l''économie. Ils nous demandaient de les croire ; nous les avons crus. En vérité, la globalisation n''était pas une fatalité, mais une idéologie, une théorie expérimentale visant à remodeler simultanément les paysages économique, politique et social. Or, tout montre aujourd''hui que cette idéologie-là est en train de mourir... Dans la lignée des Bâtards de Voltaire, qui provoqua un électrochoc lors de sa sortie, John Saul décrit un monde en transition, où des pays, voire des continents, à la dérive, ont quitté le " navire global " tandis que s''affrontent les économistes, mais où pointent également les idées et les expériences, bonnes ou risquées, qui préparent la société de demain.

Ya traducido a una docena de lenguas, en las que ha logrando gran éxito de público y de crítica, este Diccionario del que duda es una amplia guía - irónica, divertida, pero seria - para penetrar en la retórica de estos días. Utiliza el diccionario como argumento organizador. Sus temas son tan variados como "axila, focas, bebé, libre comercio, cinismo, cruzada moral, liderazgo, orgasmo, fanático y aire acondicionado", y en todos ellos va desmontando ideas recibidas y verdades comúnmente aceptadas.

Depuis quatre siècles, les élites occidentales instituent, au nom de la " raison ", des réformes dans tous les secteurs de la vie sociale, et pourtant celles-ci sont responsables de la plupart des difficultés et des violences que nous connaissons. Pourquoi ? Parce que, loin d''être, comme le prônait Voltaire, une force morale initiatrice de liberté, la " raison " des élites n''est qu''une méthode d''administration. Dans tous les domaines, le monde occidental a ainsi été transformé en une gigantesque machine incompréhensible, livrée à des " experts " - les " bâtards de Voltaire " - asservis à un système dépourvu de toute moralité. Comment nous débarrasser de la séduction exercée par les " solutions " des technocrates ? Comment nous réapproprier le droit de participer pleinement à la vie politique ? Dans ce livre décapant, utilisé aujourd''hui tant dans les écoles et les universités que dans les administrations publiques et privées, John Saul nous offre un formidable outil pour comprendre les faiblesses de notre société... et tenter d''y remédier.