John A. Macdonald
John A. Macdonald

Author: Ged Martin

Publisher: Dundurn

Published: 2013-06-01

Total Pages: 136

ISBN-13: 1459706536

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A biography of Canada’s first prime minister, a legendary political strategist who helped found a new nation in 1867. Shocked by Canada’s 1837 rebellions, John A. Macdonald sought to build alliances and avoid future conflicts. Thanks to financial worries and an alcohol problem, he almost quit politics in 1864. The challenge of building Confederation harnessed his skills, and in 1867 he became the country’s first prime minister. As "Sir John A.," he drove the Dominion’s westward expansion, rapidly incorporating the Prairies and British Columbia before a railway contract scandal unseated him in 1873. He conquered his drinking problem and rebuilt the Conservative Party to regain power in 1878. The centrepiece of his protectionist National Policy was the transcontinental railway, but a western uprising in 1885 was followed by the controversial execution of rebel leader Louis Riel. Although dominant nationally, Macdonald often cut ethical corners to resist the formidable challenge of the Ontario Liberals in his own province. John A. Macdonald created Canada, but this popular hero had many flaws.

Nation Maker
Nation Maker

Author: Richard J. Gwyn

Publisher: Vintage Canada

Published: 2012-08-21

Total Pages: 738

ISBN-13: 0307356450

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#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER John A. Macdonald, Canada's first and most important prime minister, is the man who made Confederation happen, who built this country over the next quarter century, and who shaped what it is today. From Confederation Day in 1867, where this volume picks up, Macdonald finessed a reluctant union of four provinces in central and eastern Canada into a strong nation, despite indifference from Britain and annexationist sentiment in the United States. But it wasn't easy. Gwyn paints a superb portrait of Canada and its leaders through these formative years and also delves deep to show us Macdonald the man, as he marries for the second time, deals with the birth of a disabled child, and the assassination of his close friend Darcy McGee, and wrestles with whether Riel should hang. Indelibly, Gwyn shows us Macdonald's love of this country and his ability to joust with forces who would have been just as happy to see the end of Canada before it had really begun, creating a must-read for all Canadians.

Baboo
Baboo

Author: Ainslie Manson

Publisher: Douglas & McIntyre

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 29

ISBN-13: 9780888993298

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The life of the daughter of Canada's first prime minister is remarkable for several reasons. Born with "a brain injury," Mary was restricted to a wheelchair and to very few movements of her hands, but her life was far from restricted as she enjoyed the politics of her father, musical concerts, friends, and writing letters on the typewriter her father gave her.

Canada Transformed
Canada Transformed

Author: Sarah Gibson

Publisher: McClelland & Stewart

Published: 2014-12-09

Total Pages: 546

ISBN-13: 0771057202

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To coincide with the bicentennial of Sir John A. Macdonald's birth, this is the first-ever selected collection of his most important and defining speeches. Published in collaboration with The Sir John A. Macdonald Bicentennial Commission, and endorsed by all of our living Prime Ministers, this is a beautifully produced book that deserves to be in all Canadian homes, schools, and libraries. The Sir John A. Macdonald Bicentennial Commission set out several years ago to collect, annotate, and footnote all of our first Prime Minister's speeches. Rather shockingly, this had not been done before; the speeches of even the most minor of US presidents are available in print and e-book form. Obviously, such a collection is a must for libraries and educational institutions across the country as a matter of historical record, but the speeches also make for great reading. His words have a Churchillian feel to them -- direct, decisive, visionary, and very often funny. Sir John A. is marvellously quotable, and through these speeches you understand how our country was formed, what its challenges were and often continue to be, and why our first PM was perhaps the best we'll ever have.

Private Demons
Private Demons

Author: Patricia Phenix

Publisher: National Geographic Books

Published: 2007-10-09

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 0771070454

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The first book to expose the turbulent personal life of this fascinating Father of Confederation. Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald once remarked, “I had no boyhood,” an understatement if there ever was one. Indeed, John A.’s Dickensian childhood, filled with poverty, alcoholism, and the beating death of his five-year-old brother at the hands of a drunken babysitter (a friend of his father, Hugh’s), set the stage for a political power grab that has seen no equal in Canadian history. In Private Demons, bestselling author Patricia Phenix explores through Macdonald’s family journals, diaries, and never-before-seen letters the troubled man behind Canada’s most successful politician. Phenix describes a man of myriad contradictions: patient, yet prone to settle fights with his fists; ethical, yet capable of pilfering corporate profits to pay private debts; shy, yet wildly flirtatious; sociable, yet so desirous of solitude he built escape hatches into the walls of his homes. She also examines reports that Macdonald’s depression became so deep that he once attempted suicide. Ultimately, in an obsessive need to escape his childhood demons, he sacrificed friends, family members, and financial security to achieve his single greatest ambition — to design and control the destiny of Canada. Private Demons paints a vivid portrait of nineteenth-century society while exploring the amazingly tumultuous domestic life of our most famous prime minister.

Macdonald at 200
Macdonald at 200

Author: Patrice Dutil

Publisher: Dundurn

Published: 2014-10-10

Total Pages: 473

ISBN-13: 1459724488

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Here are fifteen fresh interpretations of Canada's founding Prime Minister, published for the occasion of the bicentennial of his birth in 1815. Well researched and crisply written by recognized scholars and specialists, the collection throws new light on Macdonald's formative role in our nation.

Clearing the Plains
Clearing the Plains

Author: James William Daschuk

Publisher: University of Regina Press

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 345

ISBN-13: 0889772967

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In arresting, but harrowing, prose, James Daschuk examines the roles that Old World diseases, climate, and, most disturbingly, Canadian politics--the politics of ethnocide--played in the deaths and subjugation of thousands of aboriginal people in the realization of Sir John A. Macdonald's "National Dream." It was a dream that came at great expense: the present disparity in health and economic well-being between First Nations and non-Native populations, and the lingering racism and misunderstanding that permeates the national consciousness to this day. " Clearing the Plains is a tour de force that dismantles and destroys the view that Canada has a special claim to humanity in its treatment of indigenous peoples. Daschuk shows how infectious disease and state-supported starvation combined to create a creeping, relentless catastrophe that persists to the present day. The prose is gripping, the analysis is incisive, and the narrative is so chilling that it leaves its reader stunned and disturbed. For days after reading it, I was unable to shake a profound sense of sorrow. This is fearless, evidence-driven history at its finest." -Elizabeth A. Fenn, author of Pox Americana "Required reading for all Canadians." -Candace Savage, author of A Geography of Blood "Clearly written, deeply researched, and properly contextualized history...Essential reading for everyone interested in the history of indigenous North America." -J.R. McNeill, author of Mosquito Empires

Sir John A
Sir John A

Author: Drew Hayden Taylor

Publisher:

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 112

ISBN-13: 9781772012149

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Bobby Rabbit convinces his friend to accompany him on a "sojourn of justice," or more plainly, to assist him in digging up Sir John A. Macdonald's bones to hold for ransom.

John a MacDonald
John a MacDonald

Author: Peter Waite

Publisher: Markham, Ont. : Fitzhenry & Whiteside

Published: 2000-02

Total Pages: 68

ISBN-13: 9781550414790

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John A. Macdonald was the first prime minister of Canada. He was the dominant creative force behind the British North America Act, and brought British Columbia, Manitoba, the North-West Territory and Prince Edward Island into Confederation. His dream was the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway from coast-to-coast. John A. Macdonald was a great leader and, like all leaders, his triumphs were sometimes overshadowed by troubles. The Pacific Scandal of 1873 rocked the very foundation of his government. The Saskatchewan rebellion of 1884 divided French and English Canadians. Yet Macdonald did not despair, for he believed "troubles come as naturally as sparks fly." Macdonald's story is the story of Canada in the making - dramatic, tense, sometimes compromising, often humorous, and always entertaining.

John A. MacDonald
John A. MacDonald

Author: Donald Creighton

Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Published: 2018-06-11

Total Pages: 1000

ISBN-13: 1487518773

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First published in 1952 and 1955, John A. Macdonald: The Young Politician, The Old Chieftain remains a classic in Canadian arts and letters. Described as the greatest biography ever written in Canada, it earned Donald Creighton two Governor General's Awards. In 2013, the Toronto Review of Books recommended it to anyone who wished to become a better Canadian. In this book, Creighton examines the public and private lives of Canada’s first prime minister, his victories and defeats as well as his joys and pains. A gifted writer, Creighton takes the reader back in time, to the nineteenth century, the road to Confederation, and the building of the railway. Along the way, he visits Kingston, Quebec, Charlottetown, Ottawa, and London, following his hero from a few rooms above his father’s shop in Kingston to the corridors of power in England, including the magnificent Highclere Castle where much of the British North America Act was written. This edition includes a new introduction by Creighton's biographer, Donald Wright, and by Peter Waite, Creighton's very first doctoral student.