Until the outbreak of hostilities in 1939, Mackenzie King prided himself on never publicly saying anything derogatory about Hitler or Mussolini, unequivocally supporting the appeasement policies of British prime minister Neville Chamberlain and regarding Hitler as a benign fellow mystic. In Mackenzie King in the Age of the Dictators, Roy MacLaren leads readers through the political labyrinth that led to Canada's involvement in the Second World War and its awakening as a forceful nation on the world stage. Prime Minister King's fascination with foreign affairs extended from helping President Theodore Roosevelt exclude little yellow men from North America in 1908 to his conviction that appeasement of Hitler and Mussolini should be the cornerstone of Canada's foreign and imperial policies in the 1930s. If war could be avoided, King thought, national unity could be preserved. MacLaren draws extensively from King's diaries and letters and contemporary sources from Britain, the United States, and Canada to describe how King strove to reconcile French Canadian isolationism with English Canadians' commitment to the British Commonwealth. King, MacLaren explains, was convinced by the controversies of the First World War that another such conflagration would be disruptive to Canada. When King finally had to recognize that the Liberals' electoral fortunes depended on English Canada having greater voting power than French Canada, he did not reflect on whether a higher morality and intellectual integrity should transcend his anxieties about national unity. A focused view of an important period in Canadian history, replete with insightful stories, vignettes, and anecdotes, Mackenzie King in the Age of the Dictators shows Canada flexing its foreign policy under King's cautious eye and ultimately ineffective guiding hand.--$cProvided by publisher.
Authors
- Bibliography, etc. Note
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 289-306) and index
- Control Number Identifier
- CaOOCEL
- Date published
- 2019.
- Description conventions
- rda
- Dewey Decimal Classification Number
- 971.063/2
- Dewey Decimal Edition Number
- 23
- Distributor
- Canadian Electronic Library (Firm),
- General Note
- Issued as part of the desLibris books collection
- Geographic Area Code
- n-cn---
- ISBN
- 9780773558113 0773557148
- LCCN
- F1033.K53
- LCCN Item number
- M33 2019eb
- Modifying agency
- CaBNVSL
- Original cataloging agency
- NLC
- Physical Description | Extent
- 1 electronic text (xii, 318 pages, 24 unnumbered pages of plates)
- Published in
- Ottawa, Ontario
- Publisher or Distributor Number
- CaOOCEL
- Rights
- Access restricted to authorized users and institutions
- System Control Number
- (CaBNVSL)kck00239700 (OCoLC)1105286638 (CaOOCEL)456821
- System Details Note
- Mode of access: World Wide Web
- Transcribing agency
- YDX
Table of Contents
- Cover 1
- MACKENZIE KING IN THE AGE OF THE DICTATORS 2
- Title 4
- Copyright 5
- Dedication 6
- Contents 8
- Acknowledgments 10
- Chronology 12
- Illustrations 98
- 1 The Beginnings of the Affair 16
- 2 Asian Apprenticeship 25
- 3 Leadership Manoeuvres 44
- 4 Chanak and All That 54
- 5 Canada at the League of Nations 69
- 6 The Advent of the Dictators: Mussolini 75
- 7 The Advent of the Dictators: Hitler 81
- 8 King and Abyssinia: The Muddle 95
- 9 King and Abyssinia: The Domestic Scene 139
- 10 King and Abyssinia: The End 160
- 11 Appeasement 190
- 12 A Berliner in Berlin 208
- 13 Appalling Mischief 223
- 14 The End of the Affair 268
- 15 A Good Bit of Wool 289
- Notes 300
- Bibliography 326
- Index 344
