George Grant: Redefining Canada

W.J. Keith is a retired professor of English at the University of Toronto and author A Sense of Style: Studies in the Art of Fiction in English-Speaking Canada.

In producing an introduction to George Grant for intellectually curious
high-school students, T.F. Rigelhof was faced with a daunting challenge.
Grant was a religious visionary defending traditional philosophical
ideas and the best of Christian values in a world obsessed with and
mesmerized by material affluence and theological innovation. How could
he communicate the force and justice of his position to young people in
the even more secularized and homogenized world that Grant feared and
prophesied?

Rigelhof meets this challenge by concentrating on events in Grant’s
life (especially during the Second World War) that deeply influenced how
he viewed the world and formulated his ideas. A sometime student of
Grant’s, he is also able to convey his own deep admiration of the man
to his readers.

This isn’t a perfect book. At times, it inevitably oversimplifies, a
case in point being Rigelhof’s treatment of Grant’s early pacifism.
This is presented with deep sympathy, yet a few pages later we are
casually told that Grant soon “modified” these views and
acknowledged that the war against Hitler was “a necessary war.” Yet
Grant’s volte-face is neither discussed nor explained. This puzzled
me, and I think it may puzzle his young post-September-11 readers.

However, the accounts of Grant’s nationalism, his courage in standing
up for his principles, and his essential humanity are excellent, and
Rigelhof succeeds in demonstrating that ideas matter in the modern
world. A worthy contribution to a worthy series. Recommended.