My Times: Living with History, 1947-1995

J.L. Granatstein is a professor of history at York University, the
co-author of the Dictionary of Canadian Military History and Empire to
Umpire: Canada and the World to the 1990s, and the author of The Good
Fight.

Pierre Berton is one of the icons of Canadian culture: a successful
journalist, a television performer, and the country’s most-read
popular historian. This second volume of his memoirs, like his first, is
a first-class read. Berton has the knack of never writing a dull
sentence, and his judgments (including those on this reviewer) are tart
and funny.

The autobiography opens with Berton’s move to Toronto to work for
Maclean’s, and traces his professional life. He makes no bones about
the fact that he wrote for money, churning out books to build his house
and support his large family. He went into television for much the same
reasons, but he learned how to handle that new medium with great skill.
And then came his elevation to iconic status with his 1970 book on the
Canadian Pacific Railway, The National Dream. The timing must have been
right, the craving for a restated national myth very great, because
somehow this book became a national event. (I well remember The Toronto
Telegram giving over much of the front page to an editorial urging
readers to buy the book, publicity that no one could even wish for.)
Equally important, and despite the frequent sneers of academic
historians (including this reviewer), Berton’s books were always good,
sound history, based on hard research. Sometimes the complexities were
pushed aside in favor of anecdotes, to be sure, but very often, Berton
unearthed new material.

Now 76, Berton continues, his energy seemingly undiminished. With luck
he’ll live long enough to produce a third volume of memoirs.