George Grant: A Guide to His Thought.

Graeme S. Mount is a history professor at Laurentian University and
author of Canada’s Enemies: Spies and Spying in the Peaceable Kingdom.

Forbes is a shameless admirer of George Grant, who undoubtedly was a decent man and patriotic Canadian but whose ideas are as controversial as they are influential. Hence, one’s appreciation of this commentary on Grant will vary according to one’s appreciation of Grant himself. This reviewer agrees with only some of Grant’s many expressed opinions.

The book begins with a biography of Grant, a pacifist by conviction who served in the merchant marine during the Second World War. There he experienced all the dangers of a combatant but inflicted harm on nobody. It reviews his student days in the United Kingdom and in Canada, as well as his career as a university professor—in Halifax, at York University, and at McMaster—where he taught religion, politics, and philosophy. Grant was aware that times were constantly changing, not always in a direction which we approved.

A section on Grant’s political convictions follows. In 1965, Grant wrote his most famous book, Lament for a Nation, which suggested that in the aftermath of the 1963 election—fought over Canada’s acceptance of nuclear weapons—Canada was about to disappear. The defeat of Diefenbaker, who by then opposed the acquisition of nuclear weapons for Bomarc bases in Canada and for the Royal Canadian Air Force in Europe, meant the demise of Canada. Forty years later, Forbes notes that Canada did not disappear and that Grant’s pessimism may seem extreme. However, Forbes thinks that Grant was entitled to use hyperbole in the face of an ongoing threat, the Americanization of Canada, and that the threat remains real. Grant was correct in suggesting that Canada was worth preserving.

Grant was the grandson of two Protestant ministers, and he called himself a Christian, but Forbes indicates that he does not know what that means. Self-professed Christians have a wide range of beliefs and values. In 1977, at the age of 59, Grant said that his parents called themselves Christians but rejected the traditional doctrines. Forbes reviews various theologians who might have influenced Grant.

The primary audience for this book will be philosophers and historians of Canadian ideas.