Nation Maker, Sir John A. Macdonald: His Life, Our Times (Random House)
An exciting story, passionately told and rich in detail, this major biography is the second volume of the bestselling, award-winning John A: The Man Who Made Us, by well-known journalist and highly respected author .
John A. Macdonald, Canada's first and most important prime minister, is the man who made Confederation happen, who built this country over the next quarter century, and who shaped what it is today. From Confederation Day in 1867, where this volume picks up, Macdonald finessed a reluctant union of four provinces in central and eastern Canada into a strong nation, despite indifference from Britain and annexationist sentiment in the United States.
But it wasn't easy. The wily Macdonald faced constant crises throughout these years, from Louis Riel's two rebellions through to the Pacific Scandal that almost undid his government and his quest to find the spine of the nation: the railroad that would link east to west. Gwyn paints a superb portrait of Canada and its leaders through these formative years and also delves deep to show us Macdonald the man, as he marries for the second time, deals with the birth of a disabled child, and the assassination of his close friend Darcy McGee, and wrestles with whether Riel should hang.
Indelibly, Gwyn shows us Macdonald's love of this country and his ability to joust with forces who would have been just as happy to see the end of Canada before it had really begun, creating a must-read for all Canadians.
has long been widely-known as a political columnist for The Toronto Star and a frequent commentator on tv and radio. He is also well-known as the writer of award-winning books. These include highly-praised biographies of Pierre Trudeau, The Northern Magus, and of Newfoundland Premier Joey Smallwood, The Unlikely Revolutionary. His study of Canada as a post-modern, multi-cultural society, Nationalism With Walls; The Unbearable Lightness of Being Canadian, was cited by the Literary Review of Canadian as one of the country’s 100 most-important books.See:
Winner of the 2012 Dafoe Book Prize and the 2012 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing. An exciting story, passionately told and rich in detail, this major biography is the sec...
The first full-scale biography of Canada’s first prime minister in half a century by one of our best-known and most highly regarded political writers. The first volume of Richard Gwyn’...
Winner of the 2008 Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction.The first full-scale biography of Canada’s first prime minister in half a century by one of our best-known and most highl...
