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Since the days when John Diefenbaker was prime minister, Denis Smith has studied and written about the innermost workings of Canadian government as well as the men and women who make it work. Rogue Tory, his biography of John Diefenbaker, was acclaimed by Books in Canada as finely written, thoroughly researched, superbly organized, and scrupulously fair. It rivals Donald Creighton on Sir John A. Macdonald as the best biography of a Canadian prime minister.
Now Smith celebrates his many years as an observer of – and sometime participant in – the Canadian political arena with this collection of essays, addresses, reviews, polemics and diversions. This new and expanded edition, which includes five new essays on topics as diverse as the Napoleonic wars, the invention of pond hockey, and the founding of Trent University, were written between 1959 and 2018. Other subjects include Canada’s participation in the first Gulf War, efforts to reform the institution of Parliament, and the place in history of such figures as Lester Pearson, Pierre Trudeau, Michael Ignatieff, Jean Chretien, Stephen Harper, and many others. The result is a collection that is intriguing, thought-provoking, sometimes amusing, and always insightful.
Denis Smith has been writing about Canadian politics for pushing sixty years, since 1959, indeed. Rock’s Mills Press has just brought out an anthology, A Dissenting Voice, with selections from that impressive run. –Christopher Moore’s History News
