Howzit that Mackenzie Bowell is having a moment? There is more to it than just his lively Twitter account @PMBowell ("My pronoun is Sir").
That seems to be more biographies of Bowell than, say, Robert Borden has, and about as many as John Diefenbaker. Maybe there's hope for Kim Campbell, John Turner, and Joe Clark someday.
It's evidence that even though nineteenth-century Canadian politicians seem about as popular as a toppled statue, trade-market writers are taking up the gaps the professional historians leave. Michael Hall's book is light but lively. Wilson's Bowell biography is the most archivally-based of the ones above that I have seen, and also the one most determined to rescue him from the "weak, vain, unsuccessful" label he carries. (It's a struggle!) Boyce's book, the work of a writer from Bowell's hometown of Belleville who was also the author of The Rebels of Hastings is least inclined to defend him and sharpest about his anti-Catholic Orange Order loyalties and his virulent hostility to the Métis and prairie First Nations.
Turns out it's good to have several points of view, even on a minor figure like Bowell. We should not leave the DCB to carry all the biographical load.
