Michael Bliss turns the spotlight on himself in this incisive memoir. Using skills well honed with his earlier historical biographies, which are scholarly masterpieces and often bestsellers, Bliss deftly situates his own story in post-war Canada. Weaving his private life, politics, social movements, university affairs and his professional career into a unified texture, supported by decades of journal writing where he vented and recorded his life, Bliss offers an engaging memoir, fast paced and well written and very hard to put down.
Bliss asserts that “the biographer’s job is not so much to write a case history” in order to illustrate some great idea or event, “as it is to re-create a life.” In Writing History: A Professor’s Life, Bliss accordingly focuses on his personal motivations and situational contexts for doing what he did. He is rightly proud of his many accomplishments, but not pompous, combining many achievements with humorous self-effacement. He...
Terry Cook is a professor in the archival studies graduate program at the University of Manitoba and an international archival consultant and speaker, as well as a historian. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
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