Collected Works of George Grant: Volume 3

by George Parkin Grant, Arthur Davis (Editor), Henry Roper (Editor)

George Grant (1918?1988) has been called Canada's greatest political philosopher. During his lifetime, he encouraged Canadians to think more deeply about matters of social justice and individual responsibility, writing on subjects as diverse as war, technology, abortion, and Canadian politics. His work continues to this day to stimulate, challenge, and inspire.

Grant's legacy includes six books, more than two hundred articles, as well as broadcast transcripts, correspondence, and unpublished material. In this, the third volume of the "Collected Works of George Grant," editors Arthur Davis and Henry Roper have gathered together Grant's work from the 1960s, when he was a professor at Hamilton, Ontario's McMaster University. This is the era when Grant produced his best-known works including "Lament for a Nation" (1965) and "Technology and Empire" (1969), both of which are included in this volume. The 1960s also allowed Grant to comment on some of the massive cultural shifts that were taking place at the time and on major events like the war in Vietnam.

As with the previous volumes in the Collected Works, the text is fully annotated and includes an introduction to the period it covers. The series as a whole strives to make evident the pattern of Grant's thought, but also invites a reconsideration of the nature and significance of his work. His collected writings are a valuable contribution to Canadian political thought and intellectual history.

770 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

George Parkin Grant was a Canadian philosopher, professor, and political commentator. He is best known for his Canadian nationalism, political conservatism, and his views on technology, pacifism and Christian faith. He is often seen as one of Canada's most original thinkers.

Academically, his writings express a complex meditation on the great books, and confrontation with the great thinkers, of Western Civilization. His influences include the "ancients" such as Plato, Aristotle, and Augustine of Hippo, as well as "moderns" like Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, Leo Strauss, James Doull, Simone Weil, and Jacques Ellul.

Although he is considered the main theoretician of Red Toryism, he expressed dislike of the term when applied to his deeper philosophical interests, which he saw as his primary work as a thinker. Recent research on Grant uncovers his debt to a neo-Hegelian idealist tradition, Canadian idealism, that had a major influence on many Canadian scholars and Canadian political culture more broadly.