George Grant: A Biography

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.