Research Catalog

Title

Mackenzie King in the age of the dictators : Canada's imperial and foreign policies / Roy MacLaren.

Author

MacLaren, Roy

Publication

• Montreal ; Kingston ; London ; Chicago : McGill-Queen's University Press, [2019]
• ©2019

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xii, 318 pages, 24 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations; 24 cm

Summary

"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."--

Subjects

• Dictators
• Canada
• History
• Dictators > History > 20th century
• Canada > Foreign relations > 1914-1945
• Diplomatic relations
• King, William Lyon Mackenzie, 1874-1950
• 1900-1999

Genre/Form

History.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (page [289]-306) and index.

Additional Formats (note)

• Issued also in electronic format.

Contents

Acknowledgments -- Chronology -- Illustrations follow page -- The beginnings of the affair -- Asian apprenticeship -- Leadership manoeuvres -- Chanak and all that -- Canada at the League of Nations -- The advent of the dictators: Mussolini -- The advent of the dictators: Hitler -- King and Abyssinia: The muddle -- King and Abyssinia: The domestic scene -- King and Abyssinia: The end -- Appeasement -- A Berliner in Berlin -- Appalling mischief -- The end of the affair -- A good bit of wool -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index.

Call Number

JFE 19-9903

ISBN

• 9780773557147
• 0773557148

OCLC

1065718828

Author

MacLaren, Roy, author.

Title

Mackenzie King in the age of the dictators : Canada's imperial and foreign policies / Roy MacLaren.

Publisher

Montreal ; Kingston ; London ; Chicago : McGill-Queen's University Press, [2019]

Copyright Date

©2019

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (page [289]-306) and index.

Additional Formats

Issued also in electronic format.

Chronological Term

1900-1999

Other Form:

Online version: MacLaren, Roy. Mackenzie King in the age of the dictators. Montreal ; Kingston ; London ; Chicago : McGill-Queen's University Press, 2019 077355811X 9780773558113 (OCoLC)1081042638

Research Call Number

JFE 19-9903