Approaches to politics
- Tornto Oxford University Press 1970
- 89p.
In the 1950s Pierre Ellion Truc au wa: working out his funda- mental philosophy of politics. At the same time he was at the centre of every attempt to rally the forces of opposition to the corrupt and despotic Duplessis régime in Quebec. In 1958, for the weekly paper then edited by Jacques Hébert, he wrote a series of twenty essays on Cuebec politics in the fifties that were enlivened by numerous witty and vigorous attacks on the spokes- men of reaction In the spring of 1979 Mr Trudeau, now prime allowed Mr Héiert, now a leading Montreal book-publis! er, to reissue the essays in book form. They were published under the title Les Cheminement de la politiq and are presented here in English for the first time. E sides being a fascinating commentary on the state of Quebec polics is the decade before the Quiet Revolution, the essays from a cle r, simple, sober sta en ant of the author's considered conclusions on the relations between the individual and the state, on he sources of political power, and on the nature of politie justice, and devazcracy. They are essential reading both tis supporters and opponents of the man who rose so su: denly to ve leadership of Canada in 1968, because the set forth in fundane ntal terms what he believes government wad poli- tic. to be Sout. Ramsay Couk con iributes an important introductory essay, The Coming of the Quiet (Bavolution', kad Jacques Hébers intro- duition to the original French ed ion provides an essential perst mal reminiscence of the Pierre Trudeau of the fifties.