Canada's King: An Essay in Political Psychology

Penny E. Bryden is an assistant professor of history at Mount Allison
University, the author of Planners and Politicians: Liberal Politics and
social policy, 1957–1968, and the co-author of The Welfare State in
Canada: Past, Present and Future.

Paul Roazen, one of the world’s foremost experts in political
psychology, having published extensively on Freud and Helene Deutsch,
has turned his hand here to the task of explaining Canada’s foremost
political enigma, Mackenzie King. This is not a pretty book: a good copy
editor could have done wonders with it, and the finished product is a
poor reflection of the skills of its author. Mangled sentences and
unnecessary repetition aside, this book makes an interesting if somewhat
slim contribution to the Mackenzie King record.

Roazen has uncovered new psychological evidence about the pre-Prime
Minister King that helps explain his behavioral irregularities in later
life, a topic that many biographers have attempted but one that few have
been able to explain satisfactorily. Much has been made of King’s
reliance on spiritualists, his seemingly eccentric views on chance and
design, and his ability to move beyond inner turmoil to become perhaps
Canada’s most successful politician. Roazen places King’s 1916
visits to psychiatrist Adolph Meyer in the context of the evolution of
the discipline of psychiatry, and his medical evidence in the broader
context of the study of political psychology. This is as much a trip
through the existing King historiography, and through Roazen’s own
theories after 20 years mulling over this subject, as it is an exposé
of the early King’s troubles. It is refreshing to see a much-studied
man turned viewed from an interesting new perspective, despite there
being much that remains hidden even from the gaze of political
psychology.