Calgary Store: Books: A Fair Country

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Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars

A Call to Arms January 4, 2009
1 out of 2 found this review helpful

Saul provides us with a passionate call to arms. Multiple examples from present day mediocre political and corporate managers are breath-taking and at times discouraging - who knew that our government passed (in 2004) a reasonable law to allow the shipment of low cost drugs to third world countries and then shipped NOTHING in the first two years!! Quite revealing to me was the degree of detail about historical events that I knew nothing about - for instance the Great Peace of Montreal of 1701. How did the history of our country get so distorted and truncated as to "forget" such events, unless it was being first filtered through the lens of multiple colonial and imperial countries. Saul is eloquent as he presents the values of aboriginal peoples and links them to the growth of Canada. The only thing missing is a more open linkage of his descriptions of the aboriginal way of thinking with the concepts of systems thinking. Bravo! Do we have the courage to follow some of his suggestions and take back our destiny?

5 out of 5 stars

Radical Vision December 27, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful

A radical revision of standard school boy history of Canada.And a not so
far off revision at that. As someone having experienced Canada from East
to West....and to the Arctic ,teaching and working with Inuit, Dene , Gwich'en , Saul paints a realistic picture of how Canada really came to
be and is certainly to be applauded for centering that portrait around
the significant contributions embedded in our Canadian psyche a la ....
aboriginal bedrock cultural contributions { yes, in spite of and not denying the not so good things fostered by attempts to assimilate etc., of
both Church and state. DFG

1 out of 5 stars

A Terrible Book December 5, 2008
4 out of 21 found this review helpful

Canada has spent most of its history trying to distroy aboriginal culture in the most brutal way possible, and now the author of A Fair Country wants to "claim" aboriginal ways of thinking for the country? It's really shocking that someone would write a book so lacking in any sensitivity.

It's a pity that no one seems interested in writing the true story of what happened to aboriginal children who were forcibly taken from their parents by the Canadian government, then beaten, raped and starved in residential schools. This didn't end until the 1980s. Does anyone want to discuss that? No--instead we get this book, which consists of a bunch of "Canada is so morally superior to other countries" assertions, while conveniently ignoring the ugly truth of how Canada was built. And now, not being content with taking everything else away from Canada's aboriginal peoples, apparently Mr. Saul wants to steal their cultural identity as well. I wouldn't recomment this book to anyone.

5 out of 5 stars

The Unvarnished Truth November 28, 2008
15 out of 16 found this review helpful

John Ralston Saul, Canada's self-declared iconclast and demythasizer, has produced another humdinger of a study to challenge Canadians to come to grips with their true potential as a nation. His advice in this book is for us to stop seeing ourselves as stereotypically passive, ordinary, and statically cultured. To prove his point, Saul does an in depth review of the so-called truth of those historical issues that seem to set the tone as to how we perceived our place in the modern world. First, the author tackles the view that we are predominately a distinct culture based on the true-and-tried principles of western democracy. While this idea may be somewhat true, accepting it has lulled us into a sense of complacency that doesn't respond well to the forces of global change. Historically, our culture heritage is founded in a history of interracial marriages that brings with it a sense of great adventure, tolerance, and enrichment. Second, Saul takes dead aim at how Canadians view the process of government. Focusing on the concept of peace, order and good government, many Canadians may have been lulled into thinking that personal security rather general well-being is the essence of their existence. A law and order approach does not, in Saul's estimation, lead to a greater realization of justice. Saul finishes off his book with a review of the historical record as to the forces of these past two centuries that have made Canada timid in its international stature. One area that comes in for attack is the prevailing belief that contemporary provinces like Ontario and Quebec develop and protect their own economies like they did back in pre-Confederation days. Canadians still tend to see ourselves as drawers of water and hewers of wood within the colonial context. The challenge for us Canadians in the 21st century is to start seeing ourselves more in terms of what we might become rather than who we think we are.

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