C.D. Howe A Biography

by Robert Bothwell, William Kilbourn

Book by William Kilbourn

Genres: Canada

397 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

Robert Bothwell is a professor of Canadian history, and the foremost scholar on Canadian Cold War participation, as well as a frequently published author.

Bothwell completed his BA at the University of Toronto and his PhD at Harvard University. He is currently Director of the University of Toronto's International Relations program at Trinity College, where he is a fellow, and a professor of Canadian political and diplomatic history. Bothwell holds the May Gluskin Chair in Canadian History. His research interests include modern Canadian history and political, diplomatic and military history. Bothwell is an expert on Canada-U.S. relations.

Reviews

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a very well-written and well-researched biography of C.D. Howe, one of the most influential politicians in 20th century Canada. He masterminded Canada's extraordinarily successful industrial expansion in WWII to help defeat the Nazis with an avalanche of war supplies crossing the Atlantic throughout the conflict. Even more impressive, Howe and the Mackenzie King government did this without allowing inflation to get out of hand and without having the economy fall into a postwar depression. As Minister Munitions and Supply, Howe was indispensable to Canada's impressive war effort. Then after the war, as part of the St. Laurent government, Howe once again was vital to the development of the Canadian economy in the face of many challenges in the late 1940s and 1950s. One of Howe's greatest achievements was getting the Trans-Canada Pipeline built to bring natural gas from the west to central Canada; that cheap natural gas would prove essential to Canadian economic growth for the rest of the century and beyond. The author does an excellent job exploring Howe's good and bad qualities, along with demonstrating his vast influence on Canada. His temper and arrogance brought Howe's career to a somewhat sad end in the 1957 election, but his legacy vastly outweighed his negative qualities. Indeed, it is difficult to think of any other politician who had a greater impact on Canada without becoming Prime Minister. The book is an excellent biography, but I would only recommend it to readers who have a strong interest in Canadian politics; for those not politically inclined, the subject matter would be less than compelling. Overall, I greatly enjoyed reading "C.D. Howe: A Biography".