Duplessis [Hardcover]

Conrad Black (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 743 pages
• Publisher: McClelland & Stewart; First Edition edition (January 1, 1977)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0771015305
• ISBN-13: 978-0771015304
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.5 x 2.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,354,127 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Discourse, June 15, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Duplessis (Hardcover)

Conrad Black's treatment of Maurice Duplessis is, perhaps surprisingly, one of the most objective I've read. Despite his tendency to rave against things socialist, Black manages to paint the leftist groups in opposition to Duplessisme with a fair touch of sympathy. Perhaps Black's journalistic background, rather than his political worldview, allowed him to write such a balanced, yet indicting volume.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Tought Read., April 11, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Duplessis (Hardcover)

A difficult read but rewarding. It is a scholarly work, probably best left for specialists or those that are curious about the author.

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Some historical value, plenty of errors, July 7, 2009

By 

Lola Brown (Los Angeles CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Duplessis (Hardcover)

Conrad Black wrote his thesis on the Quebec premier for his master's degree from McGill University, Montreal, Canada, in 1973 and it was later published as a book. I read this in French, it's a 2-volume set.

Many of Duplessis' "sins" were still unexposed at the time this paper was written, (not unknown but still not written about in the press) nonetheless it is staggering to read how approving Black is of the premier's activities. He acknowledges that Duplessis "owned" the province but claims that his throat-clutching control of everything and everybody was "paternal". He emphasizes that Duplessis was determined not to fall into the trap of corruption like his predecessor Taschereau and that he kept the budget firmly balanced and never accepted bribes. What a load of nonsense. The only reason he avoided obvious bribes was because he did not want to fall out of favor and lose power. There was plenty of skulduggery going on. He plainly stated that an area would NOT get roads or bridges unless they voted for him and his party. No vote, no services. A few weeks before an election, his henchmen would show up in backward, isolated areas with free televisions, fridges and so forth. It's absolutely sickening to read about this going on in a country like Canada.

Black's strange bias is evenly more clearly seen in his coverage of Duplessis' war against Jehovah's Witnesses. He tries very hard to whitewash Duplessis' motives and actions but the facts speak for themselves. For example, Black writes that Duplessis was misunderstood in this matter and there was no way he could truly have harbored that much hatred for this group. He then includes a photo of Mr. Duplessis, in rapture to the point of tears, kneeling and kissing the diamond and amethyst ring (a gift that he himself had had designed and made) of the all-powerful Catholic archbishop. The truth of the matter is that Duplessis made himself look utterly foolish with his over-zealous and unfounded persecution of this harmless group of people. When a well-off member of the religion (popular Montreal restauranteur Frank Roncarelli) started paying the bail for other Witnesses who had been unjustly arrested, Duplessis personally took it upon himself to arrange for Roncarelli's liquor license to be revoked and thus put him out of business. (Look up the Roncarelli v. Duplessis affair on the Internet to get more information on this subject. It's almost laughable how the Premier got his behind whipped on this one in the Canadian Supreme Court. Duplessis lost, big-time, and the court cases involving the Witnesses were milestones in the history of Canada's civil rights movement, indeed, in the U.S. as well. And while you're at it, don't forget to read about the scandal with the Duplessis Orphans. It had not yet been made public at the time of Black's writing but I wonder what sugar-coating Black would have given that absolutely heart-rending abuse if he had known about it?)

Conrad Black's treatment of this material gives us a very good indication as to how his mind (and morals) work and why he is today sitting as a convicted criminal in a U.S. Federal jail. Why the so-called "great ones" of this world cannot use their intelligence and energy and influence to do good and not bad is something I will never figure out (and why they don't learn from the mistakes of others!).