It takes a talented, hardworking and brave person, if not a foolhardy one, to attempt to write a serious biography of Sir John A. Macdonald. First of all, what a public life it was, beginning in the 1830s and stretching into the 1890s, more than a half century during which he was involved in virtually every aspect of colonial and Canadian affairs. Then there is the enigma of the man himself: surely our most talented and successful politician, but not one of vision, great speaking ability or outstanding moral character. He may have been an amiable companion but he was a negligent father, lonely husband and frequent public drunkard. He was surely a master manager of men but he was not to be trusted, and while he was at the centre of everything, pulling strings and cajoling, just exactly what he wanted for himself usually remains unclear. And so it goes. Then this complex human being must be apprehended through the mountain range of documentation he has left behind (805 archival...
H.V. Nelles, the L.R. Wilson Professor of Canadian History at McMaster University, recently published with his co-author, Christopher Armstrong, The Painted Valley: Artists Along Alberta’s Bow River, 1845–2000 (University of Calgary Press, 2007).
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