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John Boyko - Bennett: The Rebel Who Challenged and Changed a Nation

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John Boyko Bennett: The Rebel Who Challenged and Changed a Nation
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    Bennett: The Rebel Who Challenged and Changed a Nation
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Bennett: The Rebel Who Challenged and Changed a Nation: summary, description and annotation

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In the late 1920s, Canadas economy was showing all the signs of a full-fledged depression. Life savings were evaporating, unemployment was up, and exports were dramatically down. Riding on the popularity of his promise to blast Canadas way into world markets and thus stop the economys downward spiral Richard Bedford Bennett defeated William Lyon Mackenzie King at the polls on July 28, 1930, and assumed the leadership of the country. Over the next five years, however, Bennetts name became synonymous with the worst of the Depression from Bennett buggies, to Bennett tea, to Bennett-burghs.

Eighty years later, he is widely viewed as a difficult man, an ineffectual leader, and a politician who flip-flopped on his conservative beliefs in exchange for popularity. John Boyko offers not only the first major biography of the man, but a fresh perspective on the old scholarship. Boyko looks at the Prime Ministers sometimes controversial and often misunderstood policies through a longer lens, one that shows not a politician angling for votes, but rather a man following through on a life-long dedication to a greater role for government in society and the economy. It is easy to understand why Bennett has been so misunderstood. It is not often, after all, that a Conservative Prime Minister finds himself to the left of his Liberal opposition, but that it exactly where Bennett landed. Bennetts New Deal a series of proposals that included unemployment insurance; the establishment of a minimum wage and limits on work hours; an extension of federally backed farm credit; fair-trade and anti-monopoly legislation; and a revamped Wheat Board to oversee and control grain prices was certainly a departure from the Conservative politics of the day. The same could be said for his creation of the Bank of Canada and the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission.

Boyko explores the origins and hardening of those beliefs as he details Bennetts birth (into relative poverty) in Hopewell Cape, New Brunswick, his stunning success as a corporate lawyer and financial entrepreneur in Calgary, his years in politics, and his eventual retirement in England. As he ranges through the ups and downs of his subjects career, Boyko also invites his reader to compare the challenges faced by Bennett to those faced in Canadas more recent history. Nearly every other Canadian prime minister finds his or her way into the analysis, with Bennetts beliefs and actions measured against theirs.

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With this book, Boyko has not only shown so many parallels between yesteryear and today, but that R.B. Bennett still has much to teach us and the man holding the current reins of power about governing during troubled times. The Ottawa Citizen
Although he has gone down in history as a prig, the portrait that emerges from the rich and abundantly researched Boyko account is a largely favourable one. It is good to see that this much-degraded figure finally gets some credit. The Globe and Mail
At first glance, there is something almost reassuringly Canadian about the fact that R.B. Bennett, who was prime minister during the worst years of the Great Depression, between 1930 and 1935, has mostly avoided the full-length biographical treatment.... Boyko tries, with considerable success, to build a case that the one-term prime minister is more significant to the countrys history than his limited legacy suggests. Quill and Quire
Franklin Roosevelt was Americas R.B. Bennett. John Boyko is playing with our imaginations, of course... , but they were alike in the radicalism of their responses to the Great Depression and in their concern for the fate of ordinary people and this biography, the first serious study of Bennett in half a century, gives us back an extraordinary Canadian. Gwynne Dyer, bestselling author of Climate Wars
Required reading for any Canadian who wants to understand the real roots of modern Conservatism, and for all Conservatives who need to understand why Canadian Conservatism is unique. Wherever one is on the right-left spectrum, this masterful work connects the dots between the forces that opened the door to social innovation forces unleashed and turbo-charged by the sheer decency and will of R.B. Bennett himself. Hugh Segal, author of The Right Balance
A brilliant and unprecedented portrait of one of Canadas most important, and least understood, political leaders. Superbly researched and wonderfully written, John Boyko has produced the definitive biography of R.B. Bennett, a transformative prime minister who established important national institutions that remain the cornerstone of Canadian life today.
Bob Plamondon, author of Full Circle and Blue Thunder
Also by John Boyko
Last Steps To Freedom: The Evolution of Canadian Racism
Into The Hurricane: Attacking Socialism and The CCF
Bennett The Rebel Who Challenged and Changed a Nation - image 1
Bennett The Rebel Who Challenged and Changed a Nation - image 2
Copyright 2010, 2012 by John Boyko.
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). To contact Access Copyright, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call 1-800-893-5777.
Originally published in hardcover by Key Porter Books Limited, 2010.
Cover design by Julie Scriver.
Page design inspired by the original text design by John Gould.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Boyko, John, 1957
Bennett [electronic resource] : the rebel who challenged and changed a nation / John Boyko.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Electronic monograph in HTML format.
Issued also in print format.
ISBN 978-0-86492-744-6
1. Bennett, R. B. (Richard Bedford), 1870-1947. 2. Canada-- Politics and government--1930-1935. 3. Prime ministers--Canada-- Biography. 4. Legislators--Alberta--Biography. I. Title.
FC576.B45B69 2012a 971.0623092 C2011-907838-4
Goose Lane Editions acknowledges the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF), and the Government of New Brunswick through the Department of Wellness, Culture, and Sport.
Goose Lane Editions
500 Beaverbrook Court, Suite 330
Fredericton, New Brunswick
CANADA E3B 5X4
www.gooselane.com
This book is dedicated to Shirley, Sue, Jennifer, and Kenzie the women who make me whole.
BY JOHN ENGLISH THE EARLY YEARS 1870 1910 PUBLIC FIGURE PRIVATE - photo 3
BY JOHN ENGLISH
THE EARLY YEARS, 1870 1910
PUBLIC FIGURE, PRIVATE MAN, 19111925
ON TO LEADERSHIP, 1925 1927
OPPOSITION TO PRIME MINISTER, 1927 1930
BLASTING HIS WAY, 1930 1935
CREATING CANADIAN ICONS, 1931 1935
STRENGTH TO STUBBORNNESS:
ON TO OTTAWA TREK AND HARRY STEVENS, 1934 1935
A NEW DEAL AND A NEW GOVERNMENT, 19341935
THE FINAL YEARS, 19351947
THE CABINET OF PRIME MINISTER RICHARD BEDFORD BENNETT
I am indebted to a number of people who devoted their energies and talents to - photo 4
I am indebted to a number of people who devoted their energies and talents to the creation of this book. My kind and hard working literary agent is Daphne Hart of the Helen Heller Agency. Daphne first saw merit in the idea of exploring Bennetts life and career and took it Key Porter Books. Editor-in-Chief Linda Pruessen patiently and skillfully shepherded the manuscript through several drafts and oversaw the books development. John English not only wrote a fine foreword but also read an early draft and made a number of excellent suggestions. Martin Gould created a tremendous design, and Tom Best implemented a fine marketing plan. I am grateful to the folks who assisted me with research and in the collection of photographs at Trent Universitys Thomas J. Bata Library in Peterborough, the Glenbow Museum in Calgary, and Ottawas Library and Archives Canada.
The books first edition was well received by readers and I am grateful to all who sent along kind notes. The reviews were positive and I thank those who noted slips that I was able to correct in this revised edition. It is interesting that while many offered thoughtful views, none questioned the books premise or thesis.
My travels deepened my understanding of Bennett and I am grateful to all of those with whom I spoke. Bill Herridge told me stories of his uncle and smiled at memories of a man who was terrific with children and loved a hearty laugh. Former Alberta premier Peter Lougheed spoke with pride of his grandfather who was Bennetts early mentor and partner and told of how even after the two fell out that there existed mutual respect. Former prime minister John Turner told me childhood memories of having met Bennett, for his mother had worked for him and spoke highly of him. A number of others told stories of having encountered Bennett and all bespoke a man who was generous, warm, and funny. With each new encounter I grew more grateful to those who shared their stories and more certain that the portrait I had drawn of Bennett, a complex, contradictory, often cantankerous, but at his core a good man, was accurate.
I am grateful to Susanne Alexander and all those at Goose Lane who have published this second edition. It is only right that a man of New Brunswick should have his life story published by a New Brunswick publisher.
I thank my students, whose humour keeps me humble and whose questions keep me curious. And as with all else I do, the book would not have been possible without the support of my dear wife Sue, to whom I owe everything.
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