John Ralston Saul

Award-winning essayist and novelist, John Ralston Saul has had a growing impact on political and economic thought in many countries. Declared a “prophet” by TIME magazine, he is included in the prestigious Utne Reader’s list of the world’s 100 leading thinkers and visionaries. His works have been translated into 22 languages in 30 countries.

Saul’s latest work, Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine and Robert Baldwin, released last year by Penguin, is part of the “Extraordinary Canadians” series of which John serves as General Editor.  Previous work A Fair Country: Telling Truths About Canada, examines Canadian history and tradition and the need to recognize the truths that have formed Canada as a nation - that the country is far more Aboriginal in its methods than European.  Before 2008, he penned Joseph Howe and the Battle for the Freedom of Speech, which addresses the legacy of Howe, especially his contributions to a uniquely Canadian perspective on freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Here, Saul harkens back to a time when political debate had a priority in Canada.

In The Collapse of Globalism and the Reinvention of the World, Saul confronts the reigning economic ideology known as globalization. Far from being an inevitable force, Saul believes globalization is already breaking up into contradictory pieces and that citizens are reasserting their national interests in both positive and destructive ways. The Publishers Weekly review concluded: “Needless to say, Saul will have no fans among the tax cutters and free trade proselytizers, but his salient analysis is as accessible and relevant to the small shop owner as it is to the CEO of a multinational corporation.”

He has received many national and international awards for his writing, most recently the Pablo Neruda International Presidential Medal of Honour from the Chilean government. His Massey Lectures, The Unconscious Civilization, won the 1996 Governor General’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction, as well as the Gordon Montador Award for Best Canadian Book on Social Issues. His reinterpretation of the nature of Canada, Reflections of a Siamese Twin, also won a Montador Award and was chosen by Maclean’s as one of the ten best non-fiction books of the twentieth century. Saul is the General Editor of the Penguin ‘Extraordinary Canadians’ project. The series features inspired pairings of writers and subjects and seeks to reinterpret important Canadian figures for a contemporary audience.

Saul is best known for his philosophical trilogy – Voltaire’s Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West, The Doubter’s Companion: A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense and The Unconscious Civilization. This was followed by a meditation on the trilogy – On Equilibrium: Six Qualities of the New Humanism. His reinterpretation of the nature of Canada – Reflections of a Siamese Twin (1997) –was a groundbreaking reassessment of Canada and launched a national debate.

He has published five novels, including The Birds of Prey, an international best seller, as well as The Field Trilogy, which deals with the crisis of modern power and its clash with the individual. It includes Baraka or The Lives, Fortunes and Sacred Honor of Anthony Smith, The Next Best Thing, and The Paradise Eater, which won the prestigious Premio Lettarario Internazionale in Italy. De Si Bons Americains is a picaresque novel in which he observes the life of modern nouveaux riches Americans.

He is particularly known for his commentaries on the nature of individualism, citizenship and the public good; the failures of managerially/technocratically led societies; the confusion between leadership and managerialism; military strategy, in particular irregular warfare; the role of freedom of speech and culture; and his critique of contemporary economic arguments.

Saul is co-Chair of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship. He is Patron and former president of the Canadian Centre of PEN International. He is also Founder and Honorary Chair of French for the Future, Chair of the Advisory Board for the LaFontaine-Baldwin lecture series, and a Patron of PLAN (a cutting edge organization tied to people with disabilities), Engineers without Borders, and the Canadian Landmine Foundation. He is also a member of the Council of Writers and Experts of ICORN (International Cities of Refuge Network). A Companion in the Order of Canada (1999), he is also Chevalier in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France (1996). His 13 honourary degrees range from McGill and the l’Université d’Ottawa to Herzen State Pedagogical University in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Born in Ottawa, he studied at McGill University and the University of London, where he obtained his Ph.D. in 1972.

ADDITIONAL LINKS:

www.johnralstonsaul.com

• Critique of Contemporary Economic Arguments

• The Role of Freedom of Speech and Culture

• Military Strategy, in Particular, Irregular Warfare

• The Confusion Between Leadership and Managerialism

• The Failures of Managerially/Technocratically Led Societies

• Public Education

• Health-care Policy

• Citizenship and the Public Good

• The Nature of Individualism

• Your presentation clearly stimulated your audience and gripped their attention and your recommendations for how a small island state like Barbados could weather the current broad social economic crisis provided food for thought. The discussion that continued late into the night would suggest that the impact of your presentation will resonate with our guests in the ensuing weeks and months.
  Central Bank of Barbados
• With the information that you provided to our conference delegates, many of our friends and supporters have returned to their communities invigorated, energized, and grateful for the opportunity to participate in such a worthwhile endeavor.
  Metis Nation of Alberta

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  October 2010

  Extraordinary Canadians: Louis-Hippolyte & 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, respectively, worked together after the 1841 Union to lead a reformist movement for responsible government run by elected citizens instead of a colonial governor.

  
  
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  September 2008

  A Fair Country: Telling Truths about Canada

  In A Fair Country, Saul argues that it is critical to recognize the following aspects of Canada in order to rethink its future: that the famous "peace, order, and good government" that supposedly defines Canada is a distortion of the country's true nature, that Canada is a Métis nation, heavily influenced and shaped by aboriginal ideas, and that Canada has an increasingly ineffective elite that doesn't identify with Canada.

  
  
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  September 2007

  The Collapse of Globalism: And the Reinvention of the World

  Globalization, like many great geopolitical ideologies before it, is now officially dead. Contrary to the hopes of those who supported the global ideal, the years since the end of the Cold War have seen the return of nationalism, often is quite vociferous forms. In this groundbreaking, exhilarating book, the distinguished philosopher John Ralston Saul examines where we go from here.

  
  
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  April 2006

  Joseph Howe & The Battle for Freedom of Speech

  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.

  
  
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  December 2001

  On Equilibrium

  On Equilibrium is an intelligent, persuasive and controversial exploration of the essential qualities of humanity and how to use them to achieve equilibrium for the self and an ethical society. It is at once an attack on our weakness for ideologies and a manual for humanist action. It is the logical, compelling, and humane successor to his bestselling trilogy.

  
  
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  October 1998

  Reflections of a Siamese Twin

  In Reflections of a Siamese Twin, Saul turns his eye from a reinterpretation of the Western world 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.

  
  
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  December 1997

  The Unconscious Civilization

  This definitive treatise for students and political enthusiasts alike outlines how large scale dynamics can be influenced by individual behaviour and attitude.