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VOLTAIRE'S BASTARDS -- THE DICTATORSHIP OF REASON IN THE WEST

by John Ralston Saul © 1992 by John Ralston Saul

For Maurice Strong who taught me that a sensible relationship between ideas and action is possible

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Ecartons ces romans qu'on appelle systemes; Et pour nous elever descendons dans nous-memes. -- Voltaire

Table of Contents:

• PART I:  ARGUMENT
  • 1. In Which the Narrator Positions Himself
  • 2. The Theology of Power
  • 3. The Rise of Reason
  • 4. The Rational Courtesan
  • 5. Voltaire's Children
  • 6. The Flowering of Armaments
• PART II:  SCENES FROM A SYSTEM THAT DOESN'T WORK
  • 7. The Question of Killing
  • 8. Learning How to Organize Death
  • 9. Persistent Continuity at the Heart of Power
  • 10. In the Service-of the Greater Self
  • 11. Three Short Excursions into the Unreasonable
  • 12. The Art of the Secret
  • 13. The Secretive Knight
  • 14. Of Princes and Heroes
  • 15. The Hero and the Politics of Immortality
  • 16. The Hijacking of Capitalism
  • 17. The Miracle of the Loaves
• PART III:  SURVIVING IN FANTASY LAND -- The Individual in the World of Reason
  • 18. Images of Immortality or The Victory of Idolatry
  • 19. Life in a Box - Specialization and the Individual
  • 20. The Stars
  • 21. The Faithful Witness
  • 22. The Virtue of Doubt
• Notes
• Acknowledgments
• Index