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’s definitive biography of John A. Macdonald follows his life from his birth in Scotland in 1815 to his emigration with his family to Kingston, Ontario, to his days as a young, rising lawyer, to his tragedy-ridden first marriage, to the birth of his political ambitions, to his commitment to the all-but-impossible challenge of achieving Confederation, to his presiding, with his second wife Agnes, over the first Canada Day of the new Dominion in 1867. Colourful, intensely human and with a full measure of human frailties, Macdonald was beyond question Canada’s most important prime minister. This volume describes how Macdonald developed Canada’s first true national political party, encompassing French and English and occupying the centre of the political spectrum. To perpetuate this party, Macdonald made systematic use of patronage to recruit talent and to bond supporters, a system of politics that continues to this day. Gwyn judges that Macdonald, if operating on a small stage, possessed political skills–of manipulation and deception as well as an extraordinary grasp of human nature–of the same calibre as the greats of his time, such as Disraeli and Lincoln. Confederation is the centerpiece here, and Gywn’s commentary on Macdonald’s pivotal role is original and provocative. But his most striking analysis is that the greatest accomplishment of nineteenth-century Canadians was not Confederation, but rather to decide not to become Americans. Macdonald saw Confederation as a means to an end, its purpose being to serve as a loud and clear demonstration of the existence of a national will to survive. The two threats Macdonald had to contend with were those of annexation by the United States, perhaps by force, perhaps by osmosis, and equally that Britain just might let that annexation happen to avoid a conflict with the continent’s new and unbeatable power. Gwyn describes Macdonald as “Canada’s first anti-American.” And in pages brimming with anecdote, insight, detail and originality, he has created an indelible portrait of “the irreplaceable man,”–the man who made us. “Macdonald hadn’t so much created a nation as manipulated and seduced and connived and bullied it into existence against the wishes of most of its own citizens. Now that Confederation was done, Macdonald would have to do it all over again: having conjured up a child-nation he would have to nurture it through adolescence towards adulthood. How he did this is, however, another story.” “He never made the least attempt to hide his “vice,” unlike, say, his contemporary, William Gladstone, with his sallies across London to save prostitutes, or Mackenzie King with his crystal-ball gazing. Not only was Macdonald entirely unashamed of his behaviour, he often actually drew attention to it, as in his famous response to a heckler who accused him of being drunk at a public meeting: “Yes, but the people would prefer John A. drunk to George Brown sober.” There was no hypocrisy in Macdonald’s make-up, nor any fear. —from John A. Macdonald

John A: The Man Who Made Us

Biographies & Memoirs

Richard Gwyn

Historical

Random House Canada

The extraordinary life of Joey Smallwood is the stuff of fiction – literally: Wayne Johnston’s acclaimed novel, The Colony of Unrequited Dreams, draws heavily on this definitive biography. And no wonder! Set against a colourful background in stirring times it has, as its hero, a character whose career defied both convention and the odds. Smallwood’s childhood was hard. His work experience was chequered, at best, but included stints as a contributor to socialist newspapers in New York and London. He was self-taught, and possessed the enthusiasm and wrong-headedness of the autodidact. As Gwyn shows, however, Smallwood possessed ambition of a rare order and utterly unconquerable self-confidence. These qualities combined with unerring political instinct enabled Smallwood to drag a reluctant Newfoundland into union with Canada, and subsequently to impose his will over compliant colleagues and a vestigial opposition until he governed his island province with the near-absolute power of a despot. Like a despot, too, he countenanced corruption on a scale rarely equalled in Canada. His fall, no less than his rise to power, contains elements of pathos, farce, and pure, farfetched wonderfulness. Richard Gwyn interviewed Smallwood extensively and enjoyed his subject’s full co-operation. But this is in no sense an authorized biography. It is a balanced, informed, and deeply considered life of a unique political figure.

Smallwood: The Unlikely Revolutionary

Leaders & Notable People

MCCLELLAND STEWART

Featuring a new epilogue bringing various aspects of Gwyn’s analysis up-to-date – in particular a new section on Quebec – Gwyn explores the various options available to post-referendum Canada. Nationalism Without Walls, a profound examination of Canadian nationhood by one of our leading political commentators, remains essential reading for everyone trying to come to terms with the nature of Canada.

Nationalism Without Walls: The Unbearable Lightness of Being Canadian

History

Americas

Gratefully yours, Lord

Caldey Abbey

2007 BOOKS ON TAPE set of 8 UNABRIDGED AUDIO CDs

Color of a Dog (Lib)(CD)

BOOKS ON TAPE]

Ambassador of Nowhere

Travel

South America

The Colour of a Dog Running Away

Literature & Fiction

Genre Fiction

Parthian Books

Sad Giraffe Cafe

Sad Giraffe Cafe is a collection of prose poems which together form a shifting progressive narrative. There are three recurring themes: an imaginary and sinister kingdom, a young wanderer named Alice, and a shape-shifting, time-travelling, first person narrator. The poems seem to be devoid of past or future, existing in an unstable, and at time apocalyptic present. They are peopled by strangers and lodged in an 'elsewhere' which is also somehow familiar. They have the feel of dreams masquerading as real events, or else of real events masquerading as dreams.  Richard Gwyn's collection treads an unerringly unsteady line along the borders between dream and vivid observation, between sensual and laconic, between prose and poetry. animas and alter-egos, ghosts of novels and travelogues, of the archaic / archetypal and of the contemporary populate the 'restless geography' where these wry and curiously wise short fictions are at home.A" Philip Gross

Arc Publications

Color cane che fugge

Neri Pozza

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Richard Gwyn. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Richard Gwyn