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.