The biggest title this fall must be Richard Gwyn's Nation-Maker, the second volume of his life of John A. Macdonald, from Random House Canada. With two volumes entitled The Man who Made Us and Nation-Maker, it's clearer than ever that Gwyn is doubling down on the Creighton thesis. But sixty plus years on, at least there is a new biography!
Political biography is on a tear in recent years, even as the total volume seems to shrink Winnipeg's Allan Levine offers William Lyon Mackenzie King from Douglas & McIntyre. As we earlier noted there's David Wilson's second volume on D'Arcy McGee, Peter Waite on R.B. Bennett and Paul Litt on John Turner..
There's a historical autobiography to look forward to, as well: Michael Bliss's Writing History: A Professor's Life (from Dundurn).
Also:
- Jonathan Vance Maple Leaf Empire: Canada and Britain in Two World Wars (Oxford University Press) -- timely, given the prime minister's ready-aye-ready enthusiasm for pukka British royal gewgaws for the forces.
- Chuck Davis's History of Metropolitan Vancouver (Harbour Books) from the late and much loved teller of west coast heritage.
- Dirk Septer, Lost Nuke: The Last Flight of Bomber 075 (Heritage House), about a crashed bomber in the BC mountains -- a book with its own National Geographic special, and
- from Canada's History magazine, a new photohistory, One Hundred Days that Changed Canada (HarperCollins)-- to which I have contributed a few items.
