Northern Spirits

Robert Sibley, a senior writer with the Ottawa Citizen, has a Ph.D in political science from Carleton University.

• Introduction: Spirit in Canada Part one : Hegel's Project of Reconciliation1 Reconciliation, Freedom, and the State; 2 Spirit and Sittlichkeit; 3 The Dialectic of Self and State Part two : John Watson and the Spirit of Empire 4 Idealism and Imperialism; 5 Watson's Political Problem: The Individual and the State; 6 Watson's History of Universal Reason; 7 The State in Question: Hobbes, Rousseau, and Hegel; 8 Watson's Theory of Relative Sovereignty; 9 Watson contra the British and American Hegelians; 10 Watson's Imperial Spirit Part three: George Grant and the Spirit of Tyranny 11 Canada's "Fate" and the Worship of History; 12 Hegel's Theology of Glory; 13 The "Mistake" of Christianity; 14 The "Fate" of North America; 15 Trudeau and the Betrayals of the Bureaucrats; 16 Philosophy, Tyranny, and the "End" of Canada Part four: Charles Taylor and the Spirit of Community 17 Recognition and the "Saving" of Modernity; 18 A Philosophical History of Recognition; 19 Expressivism and the Ethic of Authenticity; 20 Herder and the "Measure" of Expression; 21 Freedom, Community, State: Hegel contra Taylor; 22 Quebec, Trudeau, and the Crisis of Canada; 23 Illiberal Strands in Taylor's Thought Part Five: Northern Spirits - An Iterative Conclusion24 Taylor's Tale of Multiculturalism; 25 Grant and the Conundrum of Canada; 26 Watson and the Return to Empire

"The idea of looking at three influential Canadian thinkers in terms of their debt to Hegel is novel and illuminating -- there is no comparable study." Janet Ajzenstat, McMaster University