Trudeau and Our Times: Volume 1 - The Magnificent Obsession

Stephen Clarkson and Christina McCall

ISBN 10: 0771054149 / ISBN 13: 9780771054143

Published by McClelland and Stewart Limited, Canada, 1990

About this Item

CC4 - A hardcover book SIGNED by Stephen Clarkson and Christina McCall on the title page in very good condition in very good dust jacket. Dust jacket has price clipped, dust jacket and book have some bumped corners, light discoloration and shelf wear. Trudeau and Our Times: Volume 1 - The Magnificent Obsession. 9.5"x6.75", 502 pages. Satisfaction Guaranteed. Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau, mostly referred to as simply Pierre Trudeau, or by the initials PET, was a Canadian politician who was the 15th prime minister of Canada and leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, between 1968 and 1984, with a brief period as Leader of the Opposition, from 1979 to 1980. His tenure of 15 years and 164 days makes him Canada's third longest-serving Prime Minister, behind William Lyon Mackenzie King and John A. Macdonald. Trudeau rose to prominence as a lawyer, intellectual, and activist in Québec politics. He joined the Liberal Party and was elected to the Canadian Parliament in 1965, quickly being appointed as Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson's Parliamentary Secretary. In 1967, he was appointed Minister of Justice. Trudeau's outgoing personality caused a media sensation, inspiring "Trudeaumania", and helped him to win the leadership of the Liberal Party in 1968, when he was appointed Prime Minister of Canada. From the late 1960s until the early 1980s, Trudeau's personality dominated the political scene to an extent never before seen in Canadian political life. After his appointment as Prime Minister, he won the 1968, 1972 and 1974 elections, before narrowly losing in 1979. He won a fourth election victory shortly afterwards, in 1980, and eventually retired from politics shortly before the 1984 election. Despite his personal motto, "Reason before passion", his personality and political career aroused polarizing reactions throughout Canada during his time in office. Admirers praised what they consider to be the force of Trudeau's intellect and his political acumen, maintaining national unity over the Quebec sovereignty movement, suppressing a Québec terrorist crisis, fostering a pan-Canadian identity, and in achieving sweeping institutional reform, including the implementation of official bilingualism, patriation of the Constitution, and the establishment of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Critics accused him of arrogance, of economic mismanagement, and of unduly centralizing Canadian decision-making to the detriment of the culture of Québec and the economy of the Prairies. His eldest son, Justin Trudeau, became the 23rd and current Prime Minister, following the 2015 election and 2019 election, and is the first prime minister of Canada to be a descendant of a former prime minister. Size: 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall.

Seller Inventory # ec53292

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Trudeau and Our Times: Volume 1 - The Magnificent Obsession
• Publisher: McClelland and Stewart Limited, Canada
• Publication Date: 1990
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0771054149
• ISBN 13: 9780771054143
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
• Signed: Signed by Author
• Seller catalogs:
  • Politics & Government

About this title

Synopsis

Volume 1: The Magnificent Obsession
Winner of the Governor General’s Award

This volume examines the formative influences on Pierre Trudeau’s childhood, his knight-errant youth and early manhood, his charismatic ascent to the Liberal Party leadership, and his dramatic first decade as prime minister. It concludes with his bittersweet triumphs in fighting off the separatists in the 1980 referendum campaign and his battle with provincial premiers to patriate the Canadian constitution.

About the Author

Stephen Clarkson is a professor of political economy at the University of Toronto. A frequent commentator on Canadian affairs in both French and English media, he is the author of several books on national and international politics including the prize-winning Canada and the Reagan Challenge.

Christina McCall is a writer of literary non-fiction who has worked as a socio-political analyst for Maclean’s, Saturday Night, and the Globe and Mail. Grits, her portrait of the Liberal Party, was acclaimed as “one of the most important Canadian books of the 1980’s” and her work has won major awards.


From the Trade Paperback edition.