Ebooks for the Classroom+Faculty

Pearson: The Unlikely Gladiator
ISBN: 9780773567368
Platform/Publisher: JSTOR / McGill-Queen''s University Press
Digital rights: Users: unlimited; Printing: chapter; Download: chapter
Subjects: Pearson Lester B. 1897-1972; Canada -- Politics and government -- 1963-1968;

Lester B. Pearson was Canada's most successful diplomat, but as prime minister he was both controversial and paradoxical. He was the butter-fingered old smoothie, the cautious innovator, the anti-war warrior, the mild-mannered confrontationalist. The Pearson years were full of action and originality. Pearson had a strong team with bold, fresh ideas and their achievement was staggering. But there was also corruption in government, bitterness in Parliament, and turmoil on the home and diplomatic fronts. It was a period of both national accomplishment and national malaise, of a colourful new national flag and Charles de Gaulle's famous cry "Vive le Québec libre!"

Norman Hillmer is professor of history and international affairs at Carleton University. He is co-editor, with Adam Chapnick, of Canadas of the Mind: The Making and Unmaking of Canadian Nationalisms in the Twentieth Century.