Bob Rae was arguably the most intellectual and one of the least successful of Ontario’s premiers. His regime set the table splendidly for the yahoos currently governing at Queen’s Park. (But that’s another story found in his last book: From Protest to Power.)

Rae’s extended essay-style book, The Three Questions: Prosperity and the Public Good, strives to make connections between the global and the local and balance the pursuit of personal betterment and the requisites of the broader public good. Political philosophy is discussed on one page, followed on the next by a discussion of current government policies. There are some irrepressible contradictions between his analyses and his past policies, but he glosses over them smoothly. Rae walks a fine line: he seeks to unite the left – social democrats and left liberals – by harking back to some older Tory notions of the state and its relationship to society. The most often quoted thinker is Edmund Burke, with George Orwell in a supporting role. Marx and Mao, in contrast, are given short shrift. Rae is a big fan of Lester Pearson’s social programs but has nothing good to say about that quintessential liberal Pierre Trudeau. Rae’s heroes are Tommy Douglas, Martin Luther King, and, especially now, Tony Blair.

The book is loosely constructed around three questions posed by an ancient Babylonian rabbi: “If I am not for myself, who is for me?” “But if I am only for myself, what am I?” “And if not now, when?” It is fluid, informal, and an easy read. Rae decries the vices of resignation, inaction, and cynicism. He laments inequality and poverty and the unseemly adulation of the wealthy, and is quick to offer policy prescriptions. Human rights and dignity are posited as countervails to greed and a corporate agenda. He launches a brief broadside against today’s sensationalist media and presents politics as a noble and salutary endeavour. This book is testimony to his continuing contribution to public life.