This new volume of the" Dictionary of Canadian Biography / Dictionnaire Biographique du Canada (DCB / DBC)" presents well-written, carefully documented and meticulously edited biographies of Canadians from all walks of life. Its literary and scholarly standards make it, like its predecessors, the definitive biographical reference for its period of history. The 619 biographies by 446 authors present a panoramic view of the origins of modern Canada, its political landscapes, economic changes, educational institutions, cultural developments, and athletic achievements. The volume's coverage is inclusive, ranging from murderers to artists, from business magnates to religious leaders, from Canada's First Peoples to new immigrants. There are labour leaders, farmers, feminists, and naturalists as well as all the prominent leaders in all aspects of Canadian life.

The dominant theme of this volume is the emergence of a country engrossed by material gains and aware of broadening horizons. Sir Clifford Sifton, federal minister of the interior, Sir Lomer Gouin, premier of Quebec, and Sir Robert Bond, premier of Newfoundland, symbolize this age of development. The lives of Sir Adam Beck, father of Ontario Hydro, Gordon Morton McGregor, founder of the Ford Motor Company of Canada, and Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, illustrate how new technologies harnessed natural energy sources and created new ways to communicate. Such innovations drove the transformation of Canada in the early years of the twentieth century.

An expanding nation required thousands of new people to answer the demands of the agricultural enterprises in the west, the manufacturing industries of central Canada, and the fishing and lumbering businesses of British Columbia and the Atlantic region. Many newcomers were drawn from eastern Europe and Asia as well as the British Isles and western Europe, traditionally the homelands of new Canadians. The Doukhobor leader Peter Vasil?evich Verigin, the housemaid Angelina Napolitano, the Chinese teacher and merchant Yip Sang, and the Orthodox clergyman Nestor Dmytriw all took their places in the increasingly complex ethnic mosaic.

Social and economic changes inspired demands for other types of change. The movement of women into the professions is exemplified by the life of Clara Brett Martin, the first woman called to the bar in Canada. Jeanne Lajoie, an embattled Franco-Ontarian teacher, joins writers Sara Jeannette Duncan, FA(c)licitA(c) Angers (known as Laure Conan), JosA(c)phine Marchand (Dandurand) and Marjorie Lowry Christie Pickthall in the cast of women prominent in this volume. Among those representing arts and sports are the painter James Wilson Morrice and the brilliant goalkeeper Georges VA(c)zina.

Without question Volume XV of the "DCB/DBC" will take its place as one of the finest to appear in this distinguished ongoing series of Canadian lives.

To all purchasers of the "Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Volume XV 1921-1930." Please be advised that there is an error in some volumes on the staff page. It should read:
Ramsay Cook General Editor
RA(c)al BA(c)langer Directeur GA(c)nA(c)ral Adjoint

The Press regrets this error and will provide a corrected tipped-in page, at no expense, if you return the volume. Alternatively, if you contact me, I will send you an erratum slip or a label to correct the error.

Bill Harnum
Senior Vice President
Scholarly Publishing
University of Toronto Press
416 978 2239 ext 243

[email protected]

Jacques Cartier's voyages of 1534, 1535, and 1541constitute the first record of European impressions of the St Lawrence region of northeastern North American and its peoples. The Voyages are rich in details about almost every aspect of the region's environment and the people who inhabited it.As Ramsay Cook points out in his introduction, Cartier was more than an explorer; he was also Canada's first ethnographer. His accounts provide a wealth of information about the native people of the region and their relations with each other. Indirectly, he also reveals much about himself and about sixteenth-century European attitudes and beliefs. These memoirs recount not only the French experience with the Iroquois, but alo the Iroquois' discovery of the French.

In addition to Cartier's Voyages, a slightly amended version of H.P. Biggar's 1924 text, the volume includes a series of letters relating to Cartier and the Sieur de Roberval, who was in command of cartier on the last voyage. Many of these letters appear for the first time in English.

Ramsay Cook's introduction, 'Donnacona Discovers Europe, ' rereads the documents in the light of recent scholarship as well as from contemporary perspectives in order to understand better the viewpoints of Cartier and the native people with whom he came into contact.

A crisis of faith confronted many Canadian Protestants in the late nineteenth century. With their religious beliefs challenged by the new biological sciences and historical criticism of the Bible, they turned from personal salvation to the dire social problems of the industrial age. The Regenerators explores the nature of social criticism in this era and its complex ties to the religious thinking of the day, showing how the path blazed by nineteenth-century religious liberals led not to the Kingdom of God on earth, but, ironically, to the secular city. The winner of the Governor General's Literary Award for Non-Fiction when it was first published in 1985, The Regenerators became an instant classic for its fascinating portraits of evolutionists, rationalists, spiritualists, socialists, and free thinkers before the turn of the century. This new edition features an introduction by historian and biographer Donald Wright.

Prime ministers, the central figures in parliamentary government and the leaders of political parties, fill dominant roles in Canada's political history. Their importance is recognized in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography/Dictionnaire biographique du Canada by the space devoted to them. Each political leader is presented by a notable Canadian scholar who, following the rigorous standards of research, writing, and critical judgement set by the DCB/DBC, has brought life and understanding to the careers of the individuals who have served in Canada's pre-eminent political office. Canada's Prime Ministers brings these well-written biographies together for the first time in order to provide readers with an opportunity to reflect on the striking variety of personalities who have succeeded in climbing the summit of Canada's public life and the different challenges they faced in their determination to stay there. What insights into the workings of our public life do the biographies of these fifteen leaders provide? Did these very different men have anything in common that determined their success? The DCB/DBC biographies make it clear that although there is no standard mould that shapes Canadian prime ministers, prime ministerial success depends on both "character and circumstance." The biographies suggest that one of the only commonalities between the prime ministers was an unstable mixture of personal ambition and a sense of obligation toward their country and their political party. Pragmatism in making policy and in devising strategies of survival, rather than principle or ideology, often seems the guiding determinant in the success of Canada's federal political leaders. For a Canadian prime minister there is usually no higher ground than the claim to be the defender of national unity against threats of disruption and disintegration. In addition to these themes, the DCB/DBC's fifteen biographies of Canada's prime ministers is also an important historical reference tool, providing details about personal lives, sketches of close associates, a narrative of major events, and an assessment of accomplishments and failures set against the backdrop of economic and demographic growth, the social crisis of depressions, and the impact of world events. Together, they recreate the political and social panorama stretching from the campaign for confederation in 1867 to the struggle to entrench the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in the new Constitution of 1982. Told through the lives of Canada's leading politicians this is a remarkable, engrossing, documented account of modern Canadian history.