The Icelandic Canadian - 01.12.1971, Page 40

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THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
WINTER 1971
the Canadian Fabric, Winnipeg, Col-
umbia Press, 1955, 363 pp.
History
The Icelanders in Canada, Winnipeg,
National Publishers and Viking Print-
ers, 1967. 510 pp. — History.
Tryggvi J. Oleson, Wesley, 1934.
Saga Islendinga i Vesturheimi (The
History of the Icelandic People in
America) Vol. 4, pp. 313—423, Reykja-
vik, Bokautgafa MenningarsjoSs, 1951.
—Volume 5, pp 1-311, 1953.
Witenagemot in the Reign of Edward
the Confessor, Toronto, University of
Toronto Press, 1955.
Early Voyages and Northern Ap-
proaches, 1000“! 632, Toronto, Mc-
Clelland and Stewart, 1963. 211 pp. —
History.
Paul A. Sigurdson, Wesley, 1951.
The Icelander, a three-act play, per-
formed at the Manitoba Theatre
Centre, Winnipeg, May 1971 and at
the Icelandic Festival, 1971.
Edward J. Thorlakson, Wesley, 1922.
The Derelict, a play presented at the
Dominion Drama Festival in the mid-
thirties.
BOOK REVIEW
Donald Swainson:
JOHN A. MACDONALD,
the Man and the Politician
Don Mills, Oxford University Press
1971, 160 pp. paper back. $3.50.
On learning that Donald Swainson
had written a book on Sir John A.
Macdonald, one could not help
wondering why anyone, including a
member of the Department of History
at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ont.,
should attempt another book on Sir
John, when Donald Creighton’s im-
pressive two-volume biography already
dominated the field, buit on reading
Swainson’s book, the finding is that
he was justified.
Donald Swainson’s John A. Mac-
donald, the Man and the Machine, is
in an entirely different category from
Creighton’s work. It is scholarly but
it is a relatively brief account of 157
pages, the human interest prominent,
and the style lively and readable; it is
a good book for popular reading.
“This biography, which provides a use-
ful and lucid summary of the main
events of Macdonald’s career as a poli-
tician, is also an entertaining and re-
vealing study of the attractive and
complex human being that was Mac-
donald the man”.
John A. Macdonald deserves to be
remembered. He was not the only im-
portant leader in the difficult years
before Confederation who had a vision
of the union of the colonies of British
North America, but he was the prac-
tical statesman-politician who played
the crucial role in the achievement of
Confederation and building Canada
after Confederation. “He was our
greatest Canadian”, said Wilfred
Laurier.
Donald Swainson’s book is a clear
summary of the main historic events
of Macdonald’s period and his achieve-
ments, and an unbiased character
portrayal. It shows Macdonald’s re-
markable instinct for managing men,
his human warmth, loyalty to friends,
sociability, delightful sense of humor
and quick wit, fantastic memory, and
love of reading; it shows also his heavy
drinking and his great procrastination.
— W. Kristjanson