George Grant: A Biography

R. Douglas Francis is a history professor at the University of Calgary.

George Grant’s reputation as one of Canada’s leading intellectuals
was established by his popular and highly influential tract Lament for a
Nation (1965). In that book, he discussed two often contradictory ideas:
Canada’s political fate as a country that over the past half-century
had been decidedly Liberal in its voting pattern; and the fate of a
country with a conservative ideology on a continent that has been
decidedly liberal in thought and outlook.

Grant’s background paradoxically left him both prepared and
ill-prepared for his role as public philosopher. Being born into the
influential family of the Grants and the Parkins imposed on George Grant
a special onus that he carried for a lifetime. As William Christian
aptly illustrates, Grant spent his whole life trying to live up to
family expectations. Although he had the finest educational
opportunities, following his graduation from Oxford with a D. Phil.,
Grant’s life was marked more by failure than by success. He could
never make up his mind whether to concentrate on philosophy or theology,
and his attempt to marry the two alienated him from both theologians and
philosophers in Canadian university departments, where specialization
was demanded. Grant ended up marginalized academically, first at
Dalhousie University and then at McMaster. His move to Hamilton
coincided with his critical view of the materialistic life of North
Americans. Grant intended to write a Magnum Opus on 20th-century thought
in relation to technology; his various collections of essays and
writings—Lament for a Nation (1969), Technology and Empire (1969),
Time as History (1969), and Technology and Justice (1986)—were
preparations for a book that unfortunately never materialized.

In this fine blending of Grant’s personal and public life, Christian
clarifies Grant’s often confusing and contradictory ideas, drawing
upon a wealth of wonderful primary sources, from family papers to
Grant’s own numerous letters to “dearest Mommy.” Indeed, if there
is any criticism of this superb biography it is Christian’s
overreliance on these sources, too often at the expense of his own
critical and objective analysis. But for anyone interested in
20th-century Canadian intellectual life, this biography is essential
reading.