William Lyon Mackenzie King: 1924-1932: The lonely heights [by] H. B. Neatby
Author: Robert MacGregor Dawson
Publisher:
Published: 1959
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13:
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King of the Mountain
Author: Arnold M. Ludwig
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Published: 2013-07-24
Total Pages: 496
ISBN-13: 0813143306
DOWNLOAD EBOOKPeople may choose to ignore their animal heritage by interpreting their behavior as divinely inspired, socially purposeful, or even self-serving, all of which they attribute to being human, but they masticate, fornicate, and procreate, much as chimps and apes do, so they should have little cause to get upset if they learn that they act like other primates when they politically agitate, debate, abdicate, placate, and administrate, too." -- from the book King of the Mountain presents the startling findings of Arnold M. Ludwig's eighteen-year investigation into why people want to rule. The answer may seem obvious -- power, privilege, and perks -- but any adequate answer also needs to explain why so many rulers cling to power even when they are miserable, trust nobody, feel besieged, and face almost certain death. Ludwig's results suggest that leaders of nations tend to act remarkably like monkeys and apes in the way they come to power, govern, and rule. Profiling every ruler of a recognized country in the twentieth century -- over 1,900 people in all, Ludwig establishes how rulers came to power, how they lost power, the dangers they faced, and the odds of their being assassinated, committing suicide, or dying a natural death. Then, concentrating on a smaller sub-set of 377 rulers for whom more extensive personal information was available, he compares six different kinds of leaders, examining their characteristics, their childhoods, and their mental stability or instability to identify the main predictors of later political success. Ludwig's penetrating observations, though presented in a lighthearted and entertaining way, offer important insight into why humans have engaged in war throughout recorded history as well as suggesting how they might live together in peace.
Life and Letters of Sir Wilfrid Laurier
Author: Oscar Skelton
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
Published: 1965-01-15
Total Pages: 209
ISBN-13: 0773560548
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWith masterly sweep and vigorous prose, this biography, first published just two years after Laurier's death, surveys his career, especially the fifteen eventful years of his premiership. This volume covers the years 1841-1896.
Maritime Rights Movement/Univ Microfilm
Author: Ernest R. Forbes
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
Published: 1979-01-01
Total Pages: 259
ISBN-13: 0773560718
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis book provides the first full account of a major social and political movement of the interwar years in Canada: the campaign for "Maritime Rights" which erupted in the Atlantic provinces after World War I. Ernest R. Forbes traces the history of the movement from its origins in the decline in relative status and influence of the Maritimes that accompanied the rise of the West and the growing dominance of the Central Canadian metropolises. Maritimers saw their political influence reduced, the underpinnings of their economy - especially in the critical areas of tariffs, freight rates, and subsidies - whittled away, and Canada defined in terms that seemed to exclude them. Adopting a strategy characteristic of the progressive movements of the period, they attempted through organization and agitation to restore their position. Farmers, fishermen, manufacturers, and organized labour articulated their demands through the provincial press, boards of trade, union locals, educational conferences, and mass delegations to Ottawa. Professor Forbes challenges traditional assumptions in his emphasis upon a vigorous Maritime progressivism that transcended party affiliations. All the political parties tried to use the protest movement, but none had created it, nor had it a specific founder or leader. The agitiation was in fact a spontaneous expression of the economic and social frustrations of the Maritime people. Although their efforts were largely defeated by the conflicting interests of stronger regions, and by the King government's adoitness in defusing protest through a policy of study and delay, the author believes that the aroused Maritimers had succeeded in establishing their difficulties in the public's mind as a national problem.
Canada's Department of External Affairs, Volume 1
Author: John Hilliker
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
Published: 1990-01-01
Total Pages: 440
ISBN-13: 0773562338
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAfter an introductory chapter dealing with the conduct of external relations before 1909, the book examines three distinct phases of the department's development. Although the department had modest beginnings under the first under-secretary, Sir Joseph Pope (1909-1925), it was seen by his successor, O.D. Skelton, as an important instrument for the assertion of Canadian autonomy. Skelton presided over the establishment of the first Canadian diplomatic missions abroad, and was responsible for the creation of a foreign service to staff them. With the outbreak of the war in 1939, both the responsibilities and the size of the department underwent substantial organizational change under Norman Robertson, who became under-secretary after Skelton's death in 1941. Taken together, the criteria for recruitment introduced by Skelton and the reorganization which took place under Robertson gave the department many of the features which have characterized it as a branch of the Canadian government. The further development of the institution will be examined in a second volume covering the years 1946-1968. Since the prime minister was secretary of state for External Affairs during much of the period covered by volume I, the book contributes to an understanding of the operation of the Canadian government as a whole as well as of a single department. It also examines the policy making process and therefore will be of interest to students of international relations as well as of public administration.
O.D. Skelton
Author: Norman Hillmer
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Published: 2015-07-06
Total Pages: 453
ISBN-13: 1442622369
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWhen O.D. Skelton became Prime Minister Mackenzie King’s foreign policy advisor in 1923, he was already a celebrated critic of the status quo in international and domestic affairs, a loyal Liberal Party man, and a fervent nationalist who believed Canada needed to steer a path independent of Britain. Two years later, he became the permanent head of Canada’s Department of External Affairs. Between then and his tragic death in 1941, Skelton created Canada’s professional diplomatic service, staffing it with sharp young men such as Lester B. Pearson. Skelton’s importance in Ottawa was unparalleled, and his role in shaping Canada’s world was formative and crucial. Using research from archives across Canada and around the world, Norman Hillmer presents Skelton not only as a towering intellectual force but as deeply human – deceptively quiet, complex, and driven by an outsize ambition for himself and for his country. O.D. Skelton is the definitive biography of the most influential public servant in Canada’s history, written by one of the most prolific Canadian historians of international affairs and the editor of Skelton’s voluminous papers.
Unbuttoned
Author: Christopher Dummitt
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
Published: 2017-05-01
Total Pages:
ISBN-13: 0773549390
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWhen Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King died in 1950, the public knew little about his eccentric private life. In his final will King ordered the destruction of his private diaries, seemingly securing his privacy for good. Yet twenty-five years after King's death, the public was bombarded with stories about "Weird Willie," the prime minister who communed with ghosts and cavorted with prostitutes. Unbuttoned traces the transformation of the public’s knowledge and opinion of King's character, offering a compelling look at the changing way Canadians saw themselves and measured the importance of their leaders’ personal lives. Christopher Dummitt relates the strange posthumous tale of King's diary and details the specific decisions of King's literary executors. Along the way we learn about a thief in the public archives, stolen copies of King's diaries being sold on the black market, and an RCMP hunt for a missing diary linked to the search for Russian spies at the highest levels of the Canadian government. Analyzing writing and reporting about King, Dummitt concludes that the increasingly irreverent views of King can be explained by a fundamental historical transformation that occurred in the era in which King's diaries were released, when the rights revolution, Freud, 1960s activism, and investigative journalism were making self-revelation a cultural preoccupation. Presenting extensive archival research in a captivating narrative, Unbuttoned traces the rise of a political culture that privileged the individual as the ultimate source of truth, and made Canadians rethink what they wanted to know about politicians.
Essential Readings in Canadian Constitutional Politics
Author: Peter H. Russell
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Published: 2011-01-01
Total Pages: 529
ISBN-13: 1442603682
DOWNLOAD EBOOKEssential Readings in Canadian Constitutional Politics introduces students, scholars, and practitioners to classic authors and writings on the principles of the Canadian Constitution as well as to select contemporary material. To complement rather than duplicate the state of the field, it deals with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and with Canadian mega-constitutional politics in passing only, focusing instead on institutions, federalism, intergovernmental relations, bilingualism and binationalism, the judiciary, minority rights, and constitutional renewal. Many of the selections reverberate well beyond Canada's borders, making this volume an unrivalled resource for anyone interested in constitutional governance and democratic politics in diverse societies.
Understanding Prime-Ministerial Performance
Author: Paul Strangio
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Published: 2013-03-28
Total Pages: 360
ISBN-13: 0191644463
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAt the beginning of the twenty-first century prime ministers loom larger in the consciousness of their nations than perhaps in any previous era. But how well do we really understand the variables of prime-ministerial performance, and, specifically, why some prime ministers apparently flourish in the role while others wither? This study examines how prime ministers perform as leaders of their governments, parties, and nations. It offers new ways of thinking about prime-ministerial power and leadership, and systematic empirical studies of prime-ministerial leadership practices in four Westminster democracies: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The volume features contributions from leading political scientists from all of these countries and is organised into three major sections: understanding power in prime-ministerial performance, prime ministers and their parties, and evaluating prime-ministerial performance. Through its collaborative and multifaceted approach the volume demonstrates that there are no hard and fast propositions or rules of thumb to capture what it is that makes us think of some prime ministers as so much more effective than others. Instead it highlights the importance for students of executive government to grasp the contingent interplay between personal, institutional, and contextual factors in understanding and evaluating prime-ministerial performance.
Canada and the Age of Conflict
Author: C.P. Stacey
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Published: 1981-12-15
Total Pages: 835
ISBN-13: 1442659378
DOWNLOAD EBOOKFew historians are as qualified as C.P. Stacey to address the questions underlying Canada and the Age of Conflict. This volume completes his authoritative and magisterial general history of Canada's relations with the outside world. The basic theme of the work is that foreign policy, like charity, begins at home. To this end Professor Stacey emphasizes how changing social, economic, and political conditions within Canada have dictated her reactions to external problems. Volume II begins with the diplomatic revolution of 1921, the election of Mackenzie King as Prime Minister, and the appearance of O.D. Skelton; proceeds to cover the twenties, the Bennett interlude, King's return to office, and World War II; and concludes with the ending of the King era and the aftermath of the war. Drawing extensively on new material from archival records and personal papers recently opened to researchers, Stacey strongly portrays the individual makers of Canadian policy and the statesmen abroad with whom they interacted. The overmastering influence of the office of the Prime Minister, and of the men who held that position, is an underlying theme. This volume concerns itself particularly with the personality and policies of the man who dominated the political history of the period – William Lyon Mackenzie King. Elegantly written, wirtty, and comprehensive, the volume represents a distinctive achievement by one of Canada's pre-eminent historians.
