The first full-scale biography in half a century of Canada's first, and most-important, Prime Minister.

This book - the first of two - by Richard Gwyn, one of Canada's most highly-regarded political commentators and author of the acclaimed study of Pierre Trudeau, The Northern Magus, follows Macdonald's life from his birth in Scotland, his coming to Canada as a boy with his parents, his entry into law and then into politics, the tragedies of his personal life and then the triumph of Confederation. Gwyn comments, “All but certainly, no Macdonald, no Canada.”