Lament for a Nation

Blurb

Lament for a Nation is a 1965 essay of political philosophy by Canadian philosopher George Grant. The essay examined the political fate of Prime Minister John Diefenbaker's Progressive Conservative government in light of its refusal to allow nuclear arms on Canadian soil and the Liberal Party's political acceptance of the warheads. Its influence and importance in Canadian intellectual history cannot be denied, the book immediately became a best seller and "inspired a surge of nationalist feeling" in Canada, evident in its recognition as one of The Literary Review of Canada's 100 most important Canadian books in 2005.
Although grounded in the particular examination of Diefenbaker's fate in the 1963 federal election, the analysis transcended Canadian politics, studying Canadian and American national foundations, Conservatism in Britain and North America, Canada's dual nature as a French and English nation, the fate of Western Enlightenment, and the philosophical analysis of citizenship in modern democracies.