The writing of this book has been a complicated and laborious task, though mainly for those who had to witness the process. I owe a great debt of gratitude to my wife, Gail, whose tolerance and support helped keep the project on an even keel.
That there is a book at all is owing to an old friend, Roy MacLaren, at the time Canada’s High Commissioner to Great Britain. Hearing that Penguin was in search of an author, Roy devised a way of bringing the publisher and this author together.
Bringing the author to completion was another task entirely. I am most grateful to my research assistants over time, especially Rutha Astravas, Maria Banda, Yasemin Akcakir, and Jen Hassum, to my students who sat through what must have seemed like endless droning on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and to my assistant Marilyn Laville, who was an endless fount of good counsel and good cheer as this book lumbered toward a finish. I am also indebted to my friends Doug Owram and John English, who provided timely advice and ready facts when I was at my wits’ end.
During the writing of this book I was privileged to hold the Gluskin chair in Canadian history at the University of Toronto. The Gluskin chair is generously funded by the Gluskin family to encourage research. Among other things, it relieves its lucky occupant of the pursuit of grants, effectively bypassing the agony and tedium of endless applications for small sums that are one of the most repellent parts of academic life in the twenty-first century. I am most grateful to the Gluskins for their practical and well-conceived help.
Robert Bothwell
Trinity College
University of Toronto