For Vincent Massey, youth was a period of protest and emerging public fame. He broke with his strong family traditions of Methodist piety and American ties. He became known as a patron of the arts, innovator, politician, and diplomat.

This volume begins with his prosperous Victorian childhood and carries through days as a student and wartime officer. He plans Hart House, which becomes a cultural centre. Promised a cabinet post, he runs for Parliament and is defeated. Instead, he is sent to Washington as Canada's first minister there, and achieves brilliant success. He is prominent...

Aristocrat, democrat, diplomat, cultural advocate, anglophile, fiercely proud Canadian--Vincent Massey was a complex, sometimes enigmatic figure. This finely crafted portrait of Massey's middle and later years, drawn extensively from its subject's diaries and papers, recalls a life of deep commitment to the service of his country and its culture.

From 1935 to 1946 he served as Canada's high commissioner to London, a role for which he was perfectly suited: his love of English traditions and values was exceeded only by his intense Canadian patriotism. He served well. The courage and...

In this book, seven distinguished scholars and writers discuss seven leading figures in the history of Canadian letters and public affairs. Frank H. Underhill, historian, describes the tragic career of Edward Blake, one of the ablest men who ever entered Canadian politics. D.G. Creighton, author of the definitive biography of Sir John A. Macdonald, writes of this politician whose solid achievements mock the facile depreciations of his character current during his lifetime and after. Mason Wade, author of The French-Canadians, describes the career of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, who pledged as a...

Halfway up Parnassus is a personal account of the University of Toronto with particular emphasis on the period when Dr. Bissell was its president, from 1958 to 1971. The first half of that period was the flowering of the old, self-confident university, with its established patterns of government, and its untroubled constituents. The second half saw the slow, powerful emergence of a new university, uncertain of itself and its role, seeking to find a form for democratic aspirations--not, however, without some dramatic confrontations with left-wing students. Nowhere in Canada was the...