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

Ignatius Loyola: 25 Most Evil People of the 16th Century C.E., by One-Evil.org
An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity, by Jonathan Swift
After Strange Gods: A Primer of Modern Heresy, by T.S. Eliot
The Idea of a Christian Society, by T.S. Eliot
South Sea Company, by Wikipedia
How the Dead Souls of Venice Corrupted Science, by Webster Griffin Tarpley
Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary, by Voltaire
Candide, by 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