Voltaire's Bastards- The Dictatorship of Reason in the West is a sweeping and provocative exploration of nothing less than the political, economic, social, and cultural origins of Western society. With great daring and originality, John Ralston Saul dissects the contradictions, delusions, and illusions that have brought the world to the brink of confusion and crisis, and shatters the myths surrounding the icons and institutions that we have been taught to revere and cherish.

Author Biography

John Ralston Saul's philosophical trilogy - Voltaire's Bastards, The Doubter's Companion and The Unconscious Civilization - has had a growing impact on political thought in many countries. A further work, On Equilibrium, is a persuasive and groundbreaking exploration of the human struggle for personal and social balance. Mr. Saul has written five novels, including The Birds of Prey and The Field Trilogy. These works deal with the crisis of modern power and its clash with the individual. Like his non-fiction, his novels have been translated into many languages. He has received many national and international awards for his work. 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 Macfean's magazine as one of the ten best non-fiction books of the twentieth century. His novel The Paradise Eater won the Premio Lettarario Internazionate in Italy. Most recently he received the Pablo Neruda Medal in celebration of the hundredth anniversary of Neruda's birth. Mr. Saul was born in Ottawa and studied at McGill University and the University of London, where h