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With a new introduction by the author, this "erudite and
brilliantly readable book" (The Observer, London) astutely dissects
the political, economic and social origins of Western civilization
to reveal a culture cripplingly enslaved to crude notions of
rationality and expertise.
The Western world is full of paradoxes. We talk endlessly of
individual freedom, yet we've never been under more pressure to
conform. Our business leaders describe themselves as capitalists,
yet most are corporate employees and financial speculators. We call
our governments democracies, yet few of us participate in politics.
We complain about invasive government, yet our legal, educational,
financial, social, cultural and legislative systems are
deteriorating.
All these problems, John Ralston Saul argues, are largely the
result of our blind faith in the value of reason. Over the past 400
years, our "rational elites" have turned the modern West into a
vast, incomprehensible, directionless machine, run by
process-minded experts--"Voltaire's bastards"--whose cult of
scientific management is empty of both sense and morality. Whether
in politics, art, business, the military, entertain-ment, science,
finance, academia or journalism, these experts share the same
outlook and methods. The result, Saul maintains, is a civilization
of immense technological power whose ordinary citizens are
increasingly excluded from the decision-making process.
In this wide-ranging anatomy of modern society and its
origins--whose "pages explode with insight, style and intellectual
rigor" (Camille Paglia, The Washington Post)--Saul presents a
shattering critique of the political, economic and cultural
estab-lishments of the West.
Artist Kent Monkman's all-encompassing project, Shame and
Prejudice: A Story of Resilience, takes viewers on a journey
through Canada's history, starting in the present and going back to
before Canadian confederation. Throughout the book there are
clever, albeit controversial, commentaries told by Monkman's
genderfluid, time-travelling, supernatural alter-ego Miss Chief
Eagle Testickle. Her narratives take viewers through the history of
New France and the fur trade, the nineteenth-century dispossession
of First Nations lands through Canadian colonial policies, the
horrors of the residential school system, and modern First Nations
experiences in urban environments. Shame and Prejudice challenges
predominant narratives of Canadian history and honours the
resilience of First Nations peoples. This book accompanies
Monkman's largest solo exhibition to date, which is currently
travelling across Canada at venues including the Art Museum at the
University of Toronto, the Winnipeg Art Gallery, the Glenbow Museum
in Calgary, and the Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver. The
exhibition includes the artist's own paintings, drawings, and
sculptural works, which form a dialogue with historical artefacts
and artworks borrowed from museums and private collections across
Canada. The book is trilingual with all text in English, French and
Cree.
Globalization is dead. Nation states are resurgent, international
trade has enriched the few rather than the promised many, and
democratic values are on the retreat. The shining-eyed optimism of
more open, more equal societies has given way to demagoguery and
nationalism. As the problems of immigration, extremism and the
economy cause the world's nations to rethink their relationships,
John Ralston Saul's brilliantly insightful The Collapse of
Globalism lights the way to where we go from here.
The style of my book must be in small pieces, as my life has been
in pieces. (Jalal Barzanji) From 1986 to 1988 poet and journalist
Jalal Barzanji endured imprisonment and torture under Saddam
Hussein's regime because of his literary and journalistic
achievements-writing that openly explores themes of peace,
democracy, and freedom. It was not until 1998, when he and his
family took refuge in Canada, that he was able to consider speaking
out fully on these topics. Still, due to economic necessity,
Barzanji's dream of writing had to wait until he was named
Edmonton's first Writer-in-Exile in 2007. This literary memoir is
the project Barzanji worked on while Writer-in-Exile, and it is the
first translation of his work from Kurdish into English.
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