The Rematch

Prime ministers can be forgotten. Richard Bedford Bennett governed from 1930 to 1935, and he has been the subject of relatively little scholarly research. Today very few Canadians even recognize his name. William Lyon Mackenzie King, however, has not been forgotten. He usually appears at or very near the top of historians’ rankings of the greatest prime ministers, and he continues to be the subject of book after book.

The two leaders — the forgotten and the remembered — faced off in two elections. Bennett won the first, in 1930, and King won the second, in 1935. That second contest is the ­subject of David MacKenzie’s King and Chaos, part of UBC Press’s Turning Point Elections ­series, which has previously published volumes on the elections of 1957 and 1958 and of 1993, both written by political scientists. This book is less committed to theory, has fewer charts, and is more...