Rogue Tory: The Life and Legend of John G. Diefenbaker
John Diefenbaker was briefly a legend in his own time and, as Denis Smith tells us in this fine biography, for much longer in his own mind. The legend was that of the humble outsider who rose, on the basis of his…
Which Reminds Me … A Memoir
In Canada, there are three basic types of political/bureaucratic memoirs. The first is a pastiche of self-serving vignettes dictated into a tape recorder and carefully stitched together into a readable but not very informative whole by a professional writer. Most have a…
Memories of Mike Pearson
by John Edward Belliveau
Alvin: A Biography of the Hon. Alvin Hamilton, P.C.
As Patrick Kyba notes in the introduction to his recent biography of Alvin Hamilton, the craft of Canadian political biography has focused almost exclusively on national and provincial political leaders. Individuals like Alvin Hamilton, whose contribution as a cabinet minister was critical…
Shades of Green in Longer Shadows
by Geoffrey Murray
“For Want of a (Wing) Collar…”
by Sidney Freifeld
Diefenbaker’s World: A Review Article
Should, heaven help us, there remain any Canadians not convinced of the turbulence of our times, or the speed with which events and issues pass and change, a contemporary retrospective of the era of John Diefenbaker’s stewardship of this country is a…
No Boundaries Upstairs: Canada, the United States, and the Origins of North American Air Defence, 1945-1958
The NORAD agreement, Canadian diplomat and scholar John Holmes has written, “was the logical culmination of defence arrangements on which both countries had been working for a decade, a compromise, acceptable to the times, between the logic of efficiency and political caution.”…
A Chat with the Ignatieffs
Last spring we ran the first half of an interview conducted with George and Alison Ignatieff. In this concluding half the Ignatieffs talk of life in Washington during the McCarthy era, at NATO, as Ambassador in: Belgrade, working with George Drew in…
Canada 1957-1967: The Years of Uncertainty and Innovation
Jack Granatstein is one of Canada’s foremost historians. This book, which caps the nineteen-volume Canadian Centenary Series, should be counted as one of his finest works. Writing contemporary history isn’t easy. There are too many vivid memories of familiar events, too many…
