Nation Maker: Sir John A. Macdonald: His Life, Our Times, Volume Two: 1867–1891 by Richard Gwyn (Random House Canada)
John A: The Man Who Made Us, the first volume of Richard Gwyn’s magisterial biography of Canada’s first prime minister, won the 2008 Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-fiction. There’s a strong argument to be made that the concluding volume improves on its predecessor: it is larger in scope, more in-depth, and even more forceful in laying out the argument that Macdonald is the pre-eminent founding father of our country, without whom Canada simply would not exist. Beginning with Confederation, the book traces Macdonald’s years in office, including his involvement in the Riel rebellions, the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and his advocacy for women’s and native suffrage. In a year that saw several big biographies of Canadian political figures, Nation Maker stood out as a towering testament to a towering Canadian.
