h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm just finishing up John Ralston Saul's 'A Fair Country' http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/A-Fair-Country-John-Saul/9780670068043-item.html?ref=Search+Books%3a+%2527a+fair+country%2527 and I feel I must make a note that this entry would be a little bit different if I were to write it today. That having been said, I must recommend Saul's book to any and all interested in the experiment that is Canada. As I said in my review on the Chapters-Indigo page (yes, anhaga on Chapters is anhaga on H2G2):

'A meticulously researched and documented discussion of our country as it is and how it has become what it is, laying out the dichotomy of our collective roots in the cooperation of cultures versus the mythology promolgated by the colonial elites which persist as, Saul argues, an excessively damaging drain on the national potential our cooperative, negotiating, caring common centre promises. While much emphasis in promotion of the book has been on Saul's very well supported and documented discussion of the First Nations' contribution to our meaning as a nation, the book is really about the abject, at times criminal, failure of our timid elite to preserve and improve the wellbeing of Canadians. It is reassuring that much of the response to Saul's book seems to have been a recognition that his thoughts are striking a chord of truth with many, many Canadians. Perhaps the elites will hear.

My one major disappointment is that Saul does not mention Anthony J. Hall's work covering much the same area in even more exhaustive detail, and the related absence of mention of George Manuel, who first articulated many of the concepts that underly Saul's more general discussion of Canada's situation.'