Dispatches from the Front: The Life of Matthew Halton, Canada's Voice at War - Hardcover

Halton, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0771038135 ISBN 13: 9780771038136

Publisher: McClelland & Stewart, 2014

Synopsis

As senior war correspondent for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation during the Second World War, Matthew Halton reported from the front lines in Italy and Northwest Europe and became “the voice of Canada at war.” His gripping, passionate broadcasts chronicled the victories and losses of Canadian soldiers and made him a national hero.

Born in Pincher Creek, Alberta, in 1904, Halton was to achieve the fastest ever ascent in Canadian journalism. A year after joining the Toronto Daily Star as a cub reporter, he was in Berlin to write about Adolf Hitler’s seizure of power and – long before most other correspondents – to begin a prophetic series of warnings about the Nazi regime. For more than two decades, he witnessed first-hand the major political and military events of the era. He covered Europe’s drift to disaster, including the breakdown of the League of Nations, the Spanish Civil War, the sellout to Fascism at Munich, and the Nazi takeover of Czechoslovakia. Along the way he interviewed Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Hermann Göring, Neville Chamberlain, Charles de Gaulle, Mahatma Gandhi, and dozens of others who shaped the history of the century.
In Dispatches from the Front, acclaimed former CBC correspondent David Halton, Matthew’s son, also examines his father’s often tumultuous personal life. He unravels the many paradoxes of his person­ality: the war correspondent who loathed bloodshed yet became addicted to the thrill of battle; the loner who thrived in good company; and, in some ways most puzzling of all, the womanizer with a deep and enduring love for his wife.
Drawn from extensive interviews and archival research, this definitive biography is a captivating portrait of the life of one of Canada’s most accom­plished journalists.

About this title

About the Author

DAVID HALTON’s career in journalism spanned more than forty years. He has been the CBC’s correspondent in Paris, Moscow, London, and Washington, interviewing presidents and prime ministers and covering wars and insurrections in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. From 1978 to 1991 he was the CBC’s Chief Political Correspondent in Ottawa, where he co-anchored federal elections and reported on four prime ministers. In 2005, he was the winner of a Gemini Award that cited his “well-deserved reputation for integrity and responsibility in reporting that brings credit not only on him but also to the entire Canadian television industry.” He lives in Ottawa.

Review

A Hill Times Best Book of 2014
Shortlisted for the John W. Dafoe Book Prize
Finalist for the Ottawa Book Awards
Shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Non-fiction
Longlisted for the British Columbia National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction
Longlisted for the RBC Taylor Prize

"In this biographical book by his son David, himself a distinguished broadcaster, the elder Halton became the hypnotic voice of the Second World War that Canadians relied on to tell them what and how their fighting men were doing in combat overseas." Winnipeg Free Press
 
"A book-length treatment of Halton was long overdue. Luckily for readers, David Halton has lived up to his father's exacting standards." Toronto Star
 
“This is a clear-eyed, well-written and important book about a great journalist.” Ottawa Citizen
 
“Dispatches from the Front is a well-wrought tribute to a man and a craft, the best account ever written of a Canadian reporter’s life and work.” Literary Review of Canada
 
“An important, well-researched and highly readable book.” Gene Allen, J-Source
 
“David Halton’s biography of his father, Matthew Halton, whose voice brought the Second World War into Canadian homes, is an important book.” Times Literary Supplement
 
“An extraordinary book that compellingly limns Matt’s extravagant, adventurous, achievement-filled, and far-from-perfect life. While doing so, David [Halton] also creates a vivid portrait of one of the most dramatic periods of the last century—the run-up to the Second World War and the conflict itself.” Anthony Wilson-Smith, Policy Magazine
 
 “David Halton’s biography of his father Matthew Halton is a fascinating tale of an international journalist who had humble roots in Pincher Creek.” Pincher Creek Echo
 
“[Halton’s] book is well-researched, comprehensive and highly readable. It is a fascinating look at his father’s life, warts and all.” Victoria Times Colonist
 
“Authentic and wholly absorbing....With astonishing candour, intimate detail and powerful insights, David Halton unlocks the legend of his internationally acclaimed father. Riveting and revealing!” Lloyd Robertson, CTV News – W5
 
“This is much more than one man’s memoir of his father. It is a tribute to one of Canada’s national treasures.” Morley Safer, CBS 60 Minutes
 
"Like an iron filing to a magnet Matthew Halton was inexorably drawn to WW2's front lines – from North Africa to Berlin. Acknowledged as one of the very best correspondents covering the war his exploits at the fronts and his spirited carousing between battles has been painstakingly researched and colourfully recorded by his son David. As a result, viewing the war as seen by someone who described it as it was happening all around him makes for an extraordinary read." Maj.-Gen. (Rtd.) Lewis Mackenzie, former UN peacekeeping commander
 
“This is an ode to bravery and to journalism. Every Canadian should know Matthew Halton’s story.” Wendy Mesley, CBC reporter/anchor

“At last a first class biography of Matthew Halton, the greatest Canadian foreign and war correspondent. Well-researched and well-written, this study by his son is frank and fair, and the book tells us much about Canadian journalism and broadcasting in the golden age.” J.L. Granatstein, author of The Oxford Companion to Canadian Military History

Edition details

• Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0771038135
• ISBN 13: 9780771038136
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 352