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Big Men Fear Me
Nominated for the 2023 Heritage Toronto Book Award • Finalist for the 2023 Ottawa Book Award in English Nonfiction • Longlisted for the 2023 National Business Book Award
The remarkable true story of the rise and fall of one of North America's most influential media moguls.
When George McCullagh bought The Globe and The Mail and Empire and merged them into the Globe and Mail, the charismatic 31-year-old high school dropout had already made millions on the stock market. It was just the beginning of the meteoric rise of a man widely expected to one day be prime minister of Canada. But the charismatic McCullagh had a dark side. Dogged by the bipolar disorder that destroyed his political ambitions and eventually killed him, he was all but written out of history. It was a loss so significant that journalist Robert Fulford has called McCullagh’s biography "one of the great unwritten books in Canadian history"—until now.
In Big Men Fear Me, award-winning historian Mark Bourrie tells the remarkable story of McCullagh’s inspirational rise and devastating fall, and with it sheds new light on the resurgence of populist politics, challenges to collective action, and attacks on the free press that characterize our own tumultuous era.
The remarkable true story of the rise and fall of one of North America's most influential media moguls.
When George McCullagh bought The Globe and The Mail and Empire and merged them into the Globe and Mail, the charismatic 31-year-old high school dropout had already made millions on the stock market. It was just the beginning of the meteoric rise of a man widely expected to one day be prime minister of Canada. But the charismatic McCullagh had a dark side. Dogged by the bipolar disorder that destroyed his political ambitions and eventually killed him, he was all but written out of history. It was a loss so significant that journalist Robert Fulford has called McCullagh’s biography "one of the great unwritten books in Canadian history"—until now.
In Big Men Fear Me, award-winning historian Mark Bourrie tells the remarkable story of McCullagh’s inspirational rise and devastating fall, and with it sheds new light on the resurgence of populist politics, challenges to collective action, and attacks on the free press that characterize our own tumultuous era.
320 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 18, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
November 27, 2023
This book had about as much potential as George McCullagh himself. Author, Bourrie, has excellent sources (given that McCullagh's own notes/diary were burned by his wife), but, good lord, some sources are quoted at length - to the point where it gets distracting and dull and half the page is in quotes.
The early part of GM's life is fascinating. I wish Bourrie spent more time on the ascent, rather than dwelling on the mushy middle of GM's life. So much of the book - perhaps because GM has been "written out of history" - focuses on the lives of others and the events of the day. I understand the importance of providing context to the guy's life, but I didn't need so much information on George Drew of Mackenzie King or Mitchell Hepburn.
Bourrie is a talented writer which helps push the work along, but I couldn't help but notice half a dozen sloppy copy editing mistakes. The whole book feels like it needs another editor to cut the book in half and one further to give it a final read-through. I learned a fair bit, to be sure, but... at what cost?
The early part of GM's life is fascinating. I wish Bourrie spent more time on the ascent, rather than dwelling on the mushy middle of GM's life. So much of the book - perhaps because GM has been "written out of history" - focuses on the lives of others and the events of the day. I understand the importance of providing context to the guy's life, but I didn't need so much information on George Drew of Mackenzie King or Mitchell Hepburn.
Bourrie is a talented writer which helps push the work along, but I couldn't help but notice half a dozen sloppy copy editing mistakes. The whole book feels like it needs another editor to cut the book in half and one further to give it a final read-through. I learned a fair bit, to be sure, but... at what cost?
January 31, 2023
Mark Bourrie’s 2022 biography of Globe and Mail founder George McCullagh, “Big Men Fear Me”, is a well-paced and entertaining dive into an oft-neglected area of Canadian history. The approachable prose, occasionally even caustic as the author gets in a jab or two of his own, avoids becoming an academic piece on a forgotten business titan and instead aims to be a popular account of a Canadian Citizen Kane and the early 20th century Toronto in which he moved.
George McCullagh was born in relative poverty at the turn of the century in Southern Ontario. A secondary school dropout who started his newspaper career selling subscriptions, he was an unlikely candidate to become a media baron. But with his good work ethic, his good looks and his good fortune he was able to create and form the Globe and Mail newspaper into a profitable enterprise that could act as a mouthpiece for his views and ambitions, hampered only first by his alcoholism and then by his evident manic depression that would lead to his early death.
As much a history of the time and place in which it takes place as it is about the subject, “Big Men Fear Me” is a glimpse into Ontario from the interwar period through to immediately after World War II period. The writing is very approachable—while clearly sourced, Bourrie is aiming at a broader audience and not an academic biography. The author does not try to hide his views, and in fact revels in subtle and not-so-subtle jabs at politicians of the era (it is a bipartisan disdain, but with an especially sharp view towards Canada’s longest-serving Prime Minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King, that gets more than few airings), as well as eschewing any apologetics for the political views of McCullagh that were at times questionable even to his contemporaries.
By his own admission, Bourrie has a difficult task in putting together a biography of McCullagh. There are records and contemporary reporting about the man that helped paint a portrait, but a significant portion of the artistry is creating a silhouette of the man by filling in the edges. For this reason the book is strongest through the newspaper publisher’s rise and ensconcement in the establishment into society in Depression-era Toronto. However, as McCullagh’s depression takes a stronger hold and leads to him disappearing more and more from the public eye, so too does the book’s ability to cobble together and extrapolate become less rich and more abrupt. Similarly, there is a noticeable near absence of the man outside of his work, such that private McCullagh needs to be filled in by the views and prejudices of others. Certainly one gets a sense of his personality, his bravado, and his confidence, but it is incomplete. His wife is very notably a background character only, not surprising given it was her decision to destroy his personal papers following his likely suicide, alleged an act of animosity towards her late husband. Would the personal history have added much, other than a salacious element, to a biography about a man who tied so much of his identity to his work and his success? Perhaps not, but it does leave the reader with only a four-fifths image of the man.
Challenges of the source material aside, it is a very good biography, well told and on an interesting subject. I came into it knowing nothing of McCullagh and embarrassingly little of the period from a Canadian perspective, and feel richer for the portrait painted by Bourrie.
George McCullagh was born in relative poverty at the turn of the century in Southern Ontario. A secondary school dropout who started his newspaper career selling subscriptions, he was an unlikely candidate to become a media baron. But with his good work ethic, his good looks and his good fortune he was able to create and form the Globe and Mail newspaper into a profitable enterprise that could act as a mouthpiece for his views and ambitions, hampered only first by his alcoholism and then by his evident manic depression that would lead to his early death.
As much a history of the time and place in which it takes place as it is about the subject, “Big Men Fear Me” is a glimpse into Ontario from the interwar period through to immediately after World War II period. The writing is very approachable—while clearly sourced, Bourrie is aiming at a broader audience and not an academic biography. The author does not try to hide his views, and in fact revels in subtle and not-so-subtle jabs at politicians of the era (it is a bipartisan disdain, but with an especially sharp view towards Canada’s longest-serving Prime Minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King, that gets more than few airings), as well as eschewing any apologetics for the political views of McCullagh that were at times questionable even to his contemporaries.
By his own admission, Bourrie has a difficult task in putting together a biography of McCullagh. There are records and contemporary reporting about the man that helped paint a portrait, but a significant portion of the artistry is creating a silhouette of the man by filling in the edges. For this reason the book is strongest through the newspaper publisher’s rise and ensconcement in the establishment into society in Depression-era Toronto. However, as McCullagh’s depression takes a stronger hold and leads to him disappearing more and more from the public eye, so too does the book’s ability to cobble together and extrapolate become less rich and more abrupt. Similarly, there is a noticeable near absence of the man outside of his work, such that private McCullagh needs to be filled in by the views and prejudices of others. Certainly one gets a sense of his personality, his bravado, and his confidence, but it is incomplete. His wife is very notably a background character only, not surprising given it was her decision to destroy his personal papers following his likely suicide, alleged an act of animosity towards her late husband. Would the personal history have added much, other than a salacious element, to a biography about a man who tied so much of his identity to his work and his success? Perhaps not, but it does leave the reader with only a four-fifths image of the man.
Challenges of the source material aside, it is a very good biography, well told and on an interesting subject. I came into it knowing nothing of McCullagh and embarrassingly little of the period from a Canadian perspective, and feel richer for the portrait painted by Bourrie.
April 18, 2023
The Globe and Mail bills itself as "Canada's National Newspaper". This biography tells the story of its founding publisher, George McCullagh. McCullagh, with financial backing from mining magnate William Wright, bought and merged The Globe and The Mail and Empire in 1936 to form a new newspaper, which became a bastion of political, economic, and financial news.
McCullagh, as portrayed here, was a fascinating if troubled character. Born in 1905 in southwestern Ontario, McCullagh dropped out of high school in Grade 9 to sell Globe subscriptions door to door to area farmers. He worked his way up to financial reporter, but was fired for inappropriate behaviour. He became a stock trader specializing in mining stocks for northern Ontario gold mines (which is how he met Wright) and became a millionaire by age 30 (in the middle of the Great Depression, no less). Motivated partly by revenge, McCullagh bought his former employer and fired his former boss. He became a widely known and influential public figure, associating regularly with political and business leaders, doing his best to influence public policy in ways that would be beneficial to his own interests. McCullagh, whom author Mark Bourrie suspects of being bipolar and subject to intense periods of depression, died of apparent suicide in 1952 at age 47.
Bourrie's book is based largely on secondary sources because McCullagh's widow destroyed most of his personal papers. Even with that limitation, it is a very good portrait of Canada's political and business elites in the first half of the 20th century. The focus is on McCullagh, but we also see the seemingly eternal battle between liberals and conservatives playing out in provincial and national legislatures and in their respective supporting newspapers. Two world wars and the Great Depression all have major consequences. Amidst all this, McCullagh raises a family and owns prize-winning show horses and race horses.
Bourrie's writing is clear and entertaining. He occasionally wanders off-topic, such as with an extended history of Ontario gold mines. Sometimes, he jumps back and forth in time by a few months or years as he weaves different threads through his narrative. There is a smattering of photographs, mostly of McCullagh. It seems long, but almost 20% of the book is end notes and index.
I have a slight personal connection to this story. I delivered The Globe and Mail, in the pre-dawn darkness, to customers in Ottawa for about three years in the 1970s when I was a young teenager. It was really interesting to learn about this history of the paper that passed through my hands every day. This should appeal to anyone interested in politics and journalism in the first half of the 20th century in Ontario, Toronto, and Ottawa.
McCullagh, as portrayed here, was a fascinating if troubled character. Born in 1905 in southwestern Ontario, McCullagh dropped out of high school in Grade 9 to sell Globe subscriptions door to door to area farmers. He worked his way up to financial reporter, but was fired for inappropriate behaviour. He became a stock trader specializing in mining stocks for northern Ontario gold mines (which is how he met Wright) and became a millionaire by age 30 (in the middle of the Great Depression, no less). Motivated partly by revenge, McCullagh bought his former employer and fired his former boss. He became a widely known and influential public figure, associating regularly with political and business leaders, doing his best to influence public policy in ways that would be beneficial to his own interests. McCullagh, whom author Mark Bourrie suspects of being bipolar and subject to intense periods of depression, died of apparent suicide in 1952 at age 47.
Bourrie's book is based largely on secondary sources because McCullagh's widow destroyed most of his personal papers. Even with that limitation, it is a very good portrait of Canada's political and business elites in the first half of the 20th century. The focus is on McCullagh, but we also see the seemingly eternal battle between liberals and conservatives playing out in provincial and national legislatures and in their respective supporting newspapers. Two world wars and the Great Depression all have major consequences. Amidst all this, McCullagh raises a family and owns prize-winning show horses and race horses.
Bourrie's writing is clear and entertaining. He occasionally wanders off-topic, such as with an extended history of Ontario gold mines. Sometimes, he jumps back and forth in time by a few months or years as he weaves different threads through his narrative. There is a smattering of photographs, mostly of McCullagh. It seems long, but almost 20% of the book is end notes and index.
I have a slight personal connection to this story. I delivered The Globe and Mail, in the pre-dawn darkness, to customers in Ottawa for about three years in the 1970s when I was a young teenager. It was really interesting to learn about this history of the paper that passed through my hands every day. This should appeal to anyone interested in politics and journalism in the first half of the 20th century in Ontario, Toronto, and Ottawa.
October 20, 2024
A clunky but essential picture of early 20th century Canada, Bourrie’s book is filled with little portraits and scenes of forgotten Canadian power brokers in a country still finding its sense of self and that often still acts like a British backwater.
George McCullagh makes a great central arc: a young salesboy made good who hobnobs with mining execs and asserts his quasi-fascist big business opinions in the lead up to WWII before flaming out in the early 50s. But, given his wife burned all his papers, there’s only so much that Bourrie can uncover, so the biography of a man becomes more the biography of a country.
Bourrie admirably sketches the egos and oddness of Canada and particularly Southern Ontario: MacKenzie King a weird petty diarist, Quebec’s darkness under Duplessis, the utterly forgotten Ontario premiers and early populism in a Toronto still hosting the Orange Order. Using letters, editorials, interviews, Bourrie really gets a feel for a place where a few rich white men just ran roughshod with their mediocre personalities, something still so true here today.
Of course there is also some oddness. The intro names “the extreme left and extreme right”, one doing union organizing, the other the Ku Klux Klan. And Bourrie repeats himself often enough that the chapters feel like they could stand alone as university class excerpts rather than being a larger whole. But the accounts of the Toronto newspaper wars, early high-flying journalists, the spread of radio and CBC and war censorship and the draft are all things people should be more familiar with. It may go down garden paths to fill pages but it’s great regional journalism that we so sorely lack, telling the story of ourselves in an epic fashion.
George McCullagh makes a great central arc: a young salesboy made good who hobnobs with mining execs and asserts his quasi-fascist big business opinions in the lead up to WWII before flaming out in the early 50s. But, given his wife burned all his papers, there’s only so much that Bourrie can uncover, so the biography of a man becomes more the biography of a country.
Bourrie admirably sketches the egos and oddness of Canada and particularly Southern Ontario: MacKenzie King a weird petty diarist, Quebec’s darkness under Duplessis, the utterly forgotten Ontario premiers and early populism in a Toronto still hosting the Orange Order. Using letters, editorials, interviews, Bourrie really gets a feel for a place where a few rich white men just ran roughshod with their mediocre personalities, something still so true here today.
Of course there is also some oddness. The intro names “the extreme left and extreme right”, one doing union organizing, the other the Ku Klux Klan. And Bourrie repeats himself often enough that the chapters feel like they could stand alone as university class excerpts rather than being a larger whole. But the accounts of the Toronto newspaper wars, early high-flying journalists, the spread of radio and CBC and war censorship and the draft are all things people should be more familiar with. It may go down garden paths to fill pages but it’s great regional journalism that we so sorely lack, telling the story of ourselves in an epic fashion.
December 7, 2024
If you are bitten with a fascination in Canadian history, and happen to work in the news industry, this is a terrific read! The approach to compiling a biography of an important but forgotten Canadian who had a resonating impact on the country through a thorough collection of anecdotes and other historical work is very well done here- comparable to Pierre Berton’s great storytelling. Highly recommended!
And like Berton’s work such as The Great Depression, it eerily demonstrates history repeats, even if in other places, as we observe modern day media moguls play political architects (see Elon Musk’s X amid a Trump re-election)
A note about the author: When I was a nine-year-old boy growing up in the village of Lafontaine my father dabbled (unsuccessfully) in federal politics as a local riding candidate. A very young local reporter spent some time at our kitchen table interviewing and befriending my father. Our mother somewhat remembers this reporter’s German shepherd killed one of our chickens on one of those visits and he was very apologetic. Mark Bourrie would have no idea that those kitchen chats fascinated the nine-year-old at that table, and I later became a newspaper reporter and editor. My father died a few years later and Bourrie wrote a heartfelt obit. I never crossed his path again until I spotted Big Men Fear Me at the local bookstore. I still work in the media industry today.
And like Berton’s work such as The Great Depression, it eerily demonstrates history repeats, even if in other places, as we observe modern day media moguls play political architects (see Elon Musk’s X amid a Trump re-election)
A note about the author: When I was a nine-year-old boy growing up in the village of Lafontaine my father dabbled (unsuccessfully) in federal politics as a local riding candidate. A very young local reporter spent some time at our kitchen table interviewing and befriending my father. Our mother somewhat remembers this reporter’s German shepherd killed one of our chickens on one of those visits and he was very apologetic. Mark Bourrie would have no idea that those kitchen chats fascinated the nine-year-old at that table, and I later became a newspaper reporter and editor. My father died a few years later and Bourrie wrote a heartfelt obit. I never crossed his path again until I spotted Big Men Fear Me at the local bookstore. I still work in the media industry today.
April 11, 2023
Mark Bourrie has written a biography of someone I knew nothing about, powerful media mogul George McCullagh and a time in my province’s history, the province of Ontario, that I knew nothing about. The power and the reach of newspapers, and their close links with both federal and provincial government Bourrie documents masterfully. When we sometimes are concerned with the way Twitter and the Internet are used today it is revealing to see how newspapers and radio play that same role earlier in the 20th century. Bourrie was hampered in this biography by the destruction of many of George McCullagh’s papers by his wife. Nonetheless he has written a compelling portrait of a both charismatic and flawed personality who moved in the highest circles of Canada in his time.
January 13, 2023
This is a really well researched and well written biography of a man I knew nothing about. It deals in the history of 1930s and 40s Canada, especially Ontario and federal politics. There's also a lot of information about the newspapers of that era, how they were run, and how they shaped the narrative of the times. I enjoyed this book a lot. There were a couple sections that lagged slightly, but being nonfiction I can't really blame the author for that. The life George lived is gonna be what's written. For the most part though it was interesting stuff.
I'm not sure what to take away from the man himself after reading this book. He had a lot of faults but did some really good things too. Complicated legacy I guess, which makes for a good biography.
I'm not sure what to take away from the man himself after reading this book. He had a lot of faults but did some really good things too. Complicated legacy I guess, which makes for a good biography.
June 13, 2023
Very readable history of politics in Ontario in the period 1919-1952 and its interaction with the leading newspapers and the characters that ran them, in a period when editorials (and news coverage) of those papers strongly influenced politics. How inappropriate that wealth was able to buy such a megaphone - but not as bad as the corrosive influence of social media and filter bubbles today.
Errata:
p.9 - Cicadas are bugs not beetles.
p.10 - the spacing of concessions and sideroads vary across the province - in the Toronto region concessions are generally 1.25miles (conveniently 2km almost exactly) apart and sideroads are spaced every 0.5mile
Errata:
p.9 - Cicadas are bugs not beetles.
p.10 - the spacing of concessions and sideroads vary across the province - in the Toronto region concessions are generally 1.25miles (conveniently 2km almost exactly) apart and sideroads are spaced every 0.5mile
August 23, 2025
Overall really good book! I’ve enjoyed learning about a Toronto from a bygone area. I found the book gave really good context to different industries or areas that impacted George McCullagh’s life. Not knowing anything about the subject, I found the author gave an unbiased view of actions of McCullagh. It was a relatively easy read for me and I could see myself reading it again in the future.
Read
January 10, 2023Did not finish
April 6, 2023
A good read esp. if you are into politics and history from 1900-1950. He is a colorful character. Was interesting to read about the Wright connected to the Wright-Hargreaves mine.
May 18, 2023
Hard to keep track of all of the people, but it was in interesting insider view to Canadian politics and media.
September 14, 2023
Excellent story, well written and lots of fascinating information, even though a lot of material had been destroyed.
February 17, 2025
Probably the only non-mediocre book by this author
April 11, 2024
Loved this book. It should've been recognized by non-fiction prizes. McCullagh was a fascinating, complicated, and troubled man. It should be made into a movie.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews