Good Steward: The Ernest C. Manning Story - Hardcover

Brennan, Brian

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1897252161 ISBN 13: 9781897252161

Publisher: Fifth House Publishers, 2008

Synopsis

The first book-length biography of Ernest Manning, the longest-serving premier of Alberta, who directed the transformation of the province from Depression-era poverty to modern, oil-based affluence.

Brian Brennan traces the story of a poor farm boy from Saskatchewan with little formal education who rose to become one of the most successful politicians in Western Canadian history while simultaneously attaining long-lasting success as the director of Canada's National Back to the Bible Hour radio program.

Drawing extensively from a series of oral-history interviews Manning did for the University of Alberta archives after he left provincial politics; from an unpublished memoir written by his wife Muriel; from interviews with family members, former colleagues and others; and from the various books and articles written about the rise and fall of the Social Credit in Alberta, Brennan tells how Manning:

1.) Left the farm as a teenager after hearing William Aberhart preaching the Bible on the radio and moved to Calgary with the intention of becoming a minister of the gospel.
2.)Became Aberhart's full-time assistant, helping run the Prophetic Bible Institute and participating in his radio broadcasts.
3.) Helped Aberhart organize study groups around the province to make Albertans aware of the social-credit monetary reform theories of an English economist named Major Clifford Douglas.
4.) Coordinated the initiative to turn Social Credit from an educational into a political movement when the ruling United Farmers of Alberta refused to adopt its economic policies.
5.) Stage-managed the successful 1935 provincial election campaign that saw Social Credit swept to power with fifty-six of sixty-three seats and, at age twenty-six, became the youngest cabinet minister in the British Empire.

About this title

About the Author:

I am the author of fifteen best-selling books, most about the social history and colourful personalities of Canada's past.
Born, raised, and educated in Dublin, Ireland, I have called Canada home for the past fifty years. Since 1974, I have lived and worked in Calgary, where I spent twenty-five years as a staff columnist and features writer with the Calgary Herald. Before that, I toured Canada as a professional musician and worked as a radio announcer in Prince George, British Columbia.
I have won numerous awards for my journalism, including two Western Magazine Gold Awards, the national Hollobon Award for medical reporting, and the Professional Writers Association of Canada Features Writing Award for a profile of Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi. 
I have also won awards for my books, including the first Dave Greber Freelance Writers Award for Romancing the Rockies, and the Petroleum History Society's Lifetime Achievement Award "for making numerous contributions to the body of literature concerning the Canadian petroleum industry, including many focused on its colourful personalities and significant events."
My interest in Canadian history was sparked in 1992 when I was assigned by the Calgary Herald to write a daily feature column about the lives of extraordinary individuals who had recently died. When I left the Heraldin 1999, I revisited several of those columns to incorporate the stories into my books.
One of my most constantly sought-after books is Scoundrels and Scallywags, which sold more than ten thousand copies and topped the regional best-seller charts for more than eighteen months. A sale of five thousand copies, according to generally-accepted industry standards, qualifies as a best-seller in Canada. 
When not writing books and delivering speaking engagements, I play the piano, mostly for fun and sometimes for profit. 
 

Review:

"The Good Steward is a fascinating chronicle. . . The book deserves a place in every school library, as well as on the shelves of anyone interested in what, besides oil and gas, has made Alberta so different from the nine other provinces." 
-- Fast Forward Weekly

"Finally a biography of Ernest Manning. Brian Brennan delivers a probing but respectful biography of one of Alberta's most forceful and influential personalities that brings to light how Manning and his government's policies transformed Alberta from a have-not province into an economic powerhouse. I've always admired Ernest Manning; my government adopted many of the policies he instituted as premier, and subsequent governments have built on those. Alberta's oil and gas industry infrastructure, for example, began with Ernest Manning and still bears his imprint. Anyone wanting to understand how Alberta became what it is today should begin by reading Brennan's biography of the Saskatchewan farmer's son who became this province's longest-serving premier." 
-- The Honourable Peter Lougheed

About this edition

• Publisher: Fifth House Publishers
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1897252161
• ISBN 13: 9781897252161
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240