George Grant, is a subtle and penetrating thinker with regard to technology and the fate of modern society. In this slim volume, Grant in a series of essays details the need to find a way to think about technology, i.e., the way we view technology and its impact on society.

By discussing a diversity of thinkers such as Simone Weil, Nietsche, Plato and Heidegger as well as that on the issues of euthanasia and abortion, he has shown to us the historical fate of modern society which is infatuated with technology. The picture he painted is not pretty but I believe that one must have the courage to see historical reality as it is and not shy away from it. Only then, can we begin to look at ways to avoid the coming ruins of modern technological civilization.

All in all, a very important book for anyone who is concerned with the fate of modern society.

George Grant has been one of my "heroes" ever since I read him an alternative course the freshman English in college in the early 70's. Grant changed my life and forced me to look at the metaphyscial implications of the idea of progress, of morality as "values" (as though they were a commodity), and most of all, oponed my eyes to the world of the great philosophers from Plato to Hegel. This book, the last one Grant published, is as collection of essays in which he shines through as always. Grant was a Christian Platonist who was influenced by Leo Strauss and Simone Weil. His philosophical conversation over the years was with Nietzsche and Heidegger, whome he regarded as having thought the implications of the modern project to its depths. Yet Grant says "NO" to Nietzsche and Heidegger, while at the same time recognizing the benifits of modern technology in terms of its reduction of human suffering. Grant never tires in showing how notions of justice in a technological society are no longer rooted in an overarching "given," a metaphysic to which humans are fitted for. The hubris of technology (a neologism of "making" and "knowing") has devalued life, Grant maintains, so that "qaulity" of life becomes the standard of deciding who should live and who need not live. Hence Grant is opposed both to abortion and euthanasia not to mention genocide in general. Grant's book is not easy. The essays have appeared in earlier forms and have been recrafted. Grant's language is evocative, but also very careful. His can appear to be a pessimist, but he claimed he was not. This book gives us further inklings of what he called "intimations of deprival" that have beset all who live in the technological empire. If you want to read a North American philosopher who faced the times yet found reasons for rejecting the finality of this age's horizons, Grant is the one to read.

For those who want to dig beneath the surface and begin to reflect on how technology is shaping us at the very core of who we are, this book is a must!

If you have been stirred by essays of Wendell Berry to begin to question the wisdom of technological "progress", then George Grant will lead you further. He is able to communicate clearly without using dense jargon, but do not be fooled: his words are carefully chosen and demand to be read carefully.

Grant himself has done a careful reading of Plato, Friederich Nietszche, Martin Heidegger, and Simone Weil. His understanding of these great thinkers will stimulate amateur philosophers to investigate these issues further. At the same time his interpretation of these thinkers will challenge the professionals, especially those who have bought into the post-modernist perspective.

If you care about understanding how technology has propelled many of us into living such dry banal lives in the sterility of suburbia, this book is a must read.

I read this book when it was first published over ten years ago. I have re-read it at least seven times since. Each time I read it, I see new things. It is a slim volume with less than 200 pages.

If you are concerned about the disappearance of a clear understanding of justice, then Grant will reveal some underlying principles that lie at the heart of modern technology -- a dynamo that is corroding the western tradition of justice.

Don't be fooled by the slimness of this volume. Within the space of less than a hundred pages, Grant dissected the Anglo-Saxon strain of "justice," which is based on liberalism.

In this book, Grant begins by examining the intellectual roots of English-speaking justice, by looking at the ideas of Locke and Kant. After which, he looks into a contemporary version of it, by examining the works of Rawl's magnum opus (A Theory of Justice).

After this brief but lucid discussion of the works above, Grant then show how the liberal conception of justice has fail in delivering its promises of a just society. The reason being technology. Grant, argues that technology has brought about a cybernetic society, i.e., a society which is guided by the calculation of means and ends which can erode the basic premise of liberalism, i.e., liberty of the individual. Thus, Grant argues that liberalism and technology makes strange bedfellows in modern society. On the one hand, we cherish the idea of the autonomy of the individual but on the other we want to reap the fruits of technology which is incompatible with freedom. Thus, we are locked in the horns of delimma between technology and liberty. Which would we choose?

In conclusion, one cannot help but admire the penetrating analysis of Grant's essay on modern society and its discontents. But, at the same time, I wish he would give us an alternative to that of liberalism.

This is a very easy book to read; I hold this out as a virtue since George Grant was a very complicated man. Christian does well to stick to the facts of Grant's life and then when necessary add insight to the scaffolding. There is a human quality present throughout. The all-too-human is not totally absent; although, it is obvious the author greatly admires Grant, and it is apparent Grant was his ad-hoc tutor, friend and dinner guest on many occasions. The fruits of this familiarity are gossipy tidbits about Grant's dinner with Leo Strauss and Grant's squabbles with Fulton Anderson of the University of Toronto, among other stories. This biography can serve as an introduction to many of Grant's philosophical inspirations- Simone Weil, Martin Heidegger, and Leo Strauss- as well as documenting an important part of Canada's political and social progress (maybe Grant would use a word other than progress) from a colonial state to the fragile position it now holds in the modern world.

In the aftermath of Marxism and pragmatism the western world and its citizens have lost the anchor for their moral lives. Belieiving in the goodness of progress, not only can we no longer answer the question, "progressing to what," but it does not even occur as a question to be asked. Instead all progress is deemed beneficial. Nonetheless, we are still plagued by doubts that there must be limits to what we can and should do; plagued by the inclination that all progress must be directed toward some good. Grant argues that in order to recement our moral beings and give direction to the technological progress that we hold dear, we must return to an older, ancient vision of human beings. A vision of humans as creatures whose rightful end lies not merely in untrammelled freedom, but also in recognition of our limitations.

George Parkin Grant was Canada's leading political philosopher this century. A so-called "red tory," he was a critic both of statism and the market, a position almost unknown in the United States. He was above all a critic of modernity, of modern Western man's technological "fate." He deserves to be much more widely read. Unfortunately, this volume is marred by too much editorial intervention. Grant wrote with extreme economy, and his prose style is positively noble, yet time and again the editors cut and chop his essays while inserting lengthy editorial introductions. I am thus still waiting for someone, anyone, to publish a complete edition of Grant's Collected Works.

Here we go again. TAKE 2. I liked the book a lot; however, I think the worst aspect of the book is the absence of direct comment, by Grant, on Plato's works and in particular, 'The Republic'. Grant makes several references to friend, Professor James Doull, and writers, Simone Weil, Leo Strauss, who aided him in his understanding of Plato and Socrates. Obviously, Christianity also gave Grant perspective on the pagan philosophers; nevertheless, the careful reader cannot help but feel cheated by the lack of direct comment on the 'Republic' in particular. If Doull 'taught' Grant how to read the central books of the 'Republic', I wish he would have shared it. I humbly think Book V of the 'Republic' is the republic. You understand Book V, you began to catch a glimpse of Socratic philosophy before Plato, before the Athenian law court acted. That's my only complaint. I think the reader shows well how Grant was influenced by Heidegger, Simone Weil, Leo Strauss and others. The political essays are worth reading for anyone with an interest in Canadian history, and the abortion essays, although I do not agree with them, are intellectually and morally honest expressions of genuine thoughtful concern.

The worst aspect of this reader is it's inability to show what Grant thought about the 'core books' of Plato's Republic. In several essays Grant makes mention of how indebted he is to Dalhousie Professor James Doull for 'teaching' hm to read the Republic's central books.Which books? Book 5? Book 4,5,6, and 7. Moreover, the material on Plato in the 'Thinking Their Thoughts' section is wholley inadequate in giving the reader much incite into Christian's claim that Grant was deeply affected by Plato's writings. How so? It's obvivious Grant admired Heidegger and it is shown why. Regretably this failure doesn't mortally wound the overall work.