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Bestselling historian and author Ken McGoogan delves into dictatorships of the twentieth century to sound this crucial alarm about the possibility of democratic collapse in the US and its implications for Canada.

Twentieth-century novels such as George Orwell’s 1984 and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale produced visions of future dystopia that rang with echoes of past tyrannies. Always implied was a warning that history’s worst chapters are never truly closed, and that we must not fail—as many of our forebears did—to recognize that the threat of totalitarianism cannot simply be wished away.

Shadows of Tyranny, an alarming and engrossing work of non-fiction from acclaimed Canadian author Ken McGoogan, draws on this sense of looping history to show how figures like Donald Trump replay many aspects of the authoritarianism that spread in the middle of the last century. Calling not only on Orwell and Atwood, but also on H.G. Wells, Yevgeny Zamyatin, Jack London and Hannah Arendt, McGoogan traces the ways democracy succumbed to paranoia, polarization, scapegoating and demagoguery less than a hundred years ago. These same forces, he argues, are now driving a far-right movement in the United States that seems devoted to using Trump’s warped charisma as a “wrecking ball” to clear the way for autocracy closely resembling the dictatorships that stoked the Second World War.

With this prospect, McGoogan’s central questions become all the more pressing: How should Canadians respond, officially and individually, to the possibility of democratic collapse in our powerful neighbour to the south? Is talk of manifest destiny from right-wing American firebrands like Tucker Carlson just chatter for the sake of notoriety? Or is it a hint of the expansionist urges that always lie at the heart of authoritarianism, and that may one day point the American military machine in our direction on the pretext of “liberating” us?

In the cautionary spirit of earlier visionary works, Shadows of Tyranny offers a galvanizing image of a dark possible future, as well as an urgent call to act in the belief that we still have the time and ability to ward it off.

Ken McGoogan is the globe-trotting Canadian author of seventeen books—mostly nonfiction narratives but also novels and memoirs. His bestselling titles include Searching for Franklin, Fatal Passage, Lady Franklin’s Revenge, and Canada’s Undeclared War: Fighting Words from the Literary Trenches. His most recent release, Shadows of Tyranny: Defending Democracy in an Age of Dictatorship, explores how figures like Donald Trump replay many aspects of the authoritarianism that spread in the middle of the last century.

McGoogan’s many accolades include the Pierre Berton Award for Popular History and the University of British Columbia Medal for Canadian Biography. A fellow of the Explorers Club and the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, McGoogan sails as a resource historian with Adventure Canada. He was born in Montreal, has lived in towns and cities across the country, and now resides in Guelph, ON.

John Norquay, orphan and prodigy, was a leader among the Scots Cree peoples of western Canada. Born in the Red River Settlement, he farmed, hunted, traded, and taught school before becoming a legislator, cabinet minister, and, from 1878 to 1887, premier of Manitoba.

Once described as Louis Riel’s alter ego, he skirmished with prime minister John A. Macdonald, clashed with railway baron George Stephen, and endured racist taunts while championing the interests of the Prairie West in battles with investment bankers, Ottawa politicians, and the CPR. His contributions to the development of Canada’s federal system and his dealings with issues of race and racism deserve attention today.

Recounted here by Canadian historian Gerald Friesen, Norquay’s life story ignites contemporary conversations around the nature of empire and Canada’s own imperial past. Drawing extensively on recently opened letters and financial papers that offer new insights into his business, family, and political life, Friesen reveals Norquay to be a thoughtful statesman and generous patriarch. This masterful biography of the Premier from Red River sheds welcome light on a neglected historical figure and a tumultuous time for Canada and Manitoba.

M.G. Vassanji has been exploring identity and belonging for over three decades, drawing on his own eclectic upbringing and intimate understanding of the unique challenges and perspectives born from leaving one’s home and settling in a new land. The question of how to configure and see oneself within this new land, and within the larger world that’s opened up, is a constant, nagging challenge. In today’s world, possessing multiple identities has become a commonplace concept. But what does it mean to truly belong—to a place, a community, a faith . . . a history? Can we ever belong in our new home? Did we ever belong in the home we left? Where exactly do we belong? For many, the answer is nowhere, exactly.

Combining brilliant prose, thoughtful, candid observation, and a lifetime of exploring how we as individuals are shaped by the places and communities in which we have lived and the histories that haunt them, Nowhere, Exactly examines with exquisite sensitivity the space between identity and belonging, the immigrant or exile’s experience of both loss and gain, and the weight of memory and nostalgia, and of guilt and hope felt by so many of those who leave their homes in search of new ones, for one reason or another.

M.G. Vassanji is the author of ten novels, three collections of short stories, a travel memoir about India, a memoir of East Africa, and a biography of Mordecai Richler. He is twice winner of the Giller Prize (1994, 2003) for best work of fiction in Canada; the Governor General’s Prize (2009) for best work of nonfiction; the Harbourfront Festival Prize; the Commonwealth First Book Prize (Africa, 1990); and the Bressani Prize. The Assassin’s Song was shortlisted for the Giller Prize, the Governor General’s Prize, the Writers Trust Award, and India’s Crossword Prize. Nostalgia, his dystopian novel, was a finalist for CBC’s Canada Reads. His work has been translated into Arabic, Dutch, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Latvian, Portuguese, Spanish, Turkish, and Swahili. Vassanji has given lectures worldwide and written many essays, including introductions to the works of Robertson Davies, Anita Desai, and Mordecai Richler, and the autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi. In June 2015, MG Vassanji was awarded the Canada Council Molson Prize for the Arts.

The John Wesley Dafoe Foundation is once again pleased to receive submissions for its annual Book Prize. The 2026 J.W. Dafoe Book Prize, valued at $12,000, will be awarded to a publication with a 2025 imprint “. . . for distinguished writing by Canadians, or authors resident in Canada, that contributes to the understanding of Canada, Canadians, and/or Canada’s place in the world.” Co- or multiple authored books are eligible, but not edited books consisting of chapters from many different authors.

A nominal submission fee of $50 per entry is required. To nominate a book(s), publishers and individuals:

1) Submit four copies of each book nominated;

2) Provide the appropriate submission fee ($50 per title) in cheque form payable to the J.W. Dafoe Foundation;

3) Send books and fees to Dr. Andrea Rounce, Honorary Secretary, The J.W. Dafoe Foundation, c/o 635 Oakenwald Avenue, Winnipeg, MB, R3T 1M3;

4) Meet one of two submission deadlines: Deadline for submission (ie receipt of books)
is November 14, 2025 for books published between January 1 and November 1 2025. For books published between November 1 and December 31, 2025, deadline for submission is January 16, 2026; and

5) Send an email with the publisher’s contact information (name/email/phone number) and
the book title(s) being nominated to Dr. Andrea Rounce at dafoefoundation@gmail.com

6) You will be notified when the title(s) submitted (with payment) have been received.

Formal announcement of the short list will happen in spring 2026, followed by the announcement of the winner. The Prize will be formally awarded to the author(s) at the Annual J.W. Dafoe Book Prize dinner.

Questions about submission eligibility or process can be sent to Dr. Andrea Rounce at dafoefoundation@gmail.com.

Building a Special Relationship examines an under-appreciated time in foreign relations between the United States and Canada during the 1950s, when North American officials formed a culture of bilateral cooperation under the shadow of a growing Cold War.

This work asserts that the Eisenhower era was critical to the evolution of diplomatic dealings between Canada and America. Under President Eisenhower and Prime Ministers St. Laurent and Diefenbaker, policy makers collaborating in Ottawa and Washington achieved what authors Asa McKercher and Michael D. Stevenson deem to be “tolerant accommodation” on significant issues of the day. Despite often disagreeing on their path forward but by embracing shared political ideologies and goals, both nations found common ground on matters such as defence, foreign policy, economic growth, and natural resource management.

Building a Special Relationship is a significant contribution to the scholarly understanding of Canadian diplomacy during a formative era for Ottawa. Drawing on a wide array of archival sources, this book presents a vital new interpretation of how North American diplomacy in the Eisenhower years continues to influence what is often characterized as the “special relationship” between Canada and the United States.

Historians, scholars, and readers of diplomacy, political history, and international relations will find keen new insights in Building a Special Relationship’s analysis of an integral period in North American history.

Since Confederation, Canadian prime ministers have consciously constructed the national story. Each created shared narratives, formulating and reformulating a series of unifying national ideas that served to keep this geographically large, ethnically diverse, and regionalized nation together. This book is about those narratives and stories.

Canada’s Prime Ministers and the Shaping of a National Identity offers a unique telling of Canada’s post–Second World War political history. Raymond B. Blake shows how prime ministers were identity entrepreneurs: regardless of political stripe, they worked to build national unity, forged a citizenship based on inclusion, and defined a place for Canada in the world. They created for citizens an ideal image of what the nation stands for and the path it should follow. Through their differences and similarities, they collectively told a national story of Canada as a modern, progressive, liberal state, and portrayed a strong commitment to inclusion coupled with a deep respect for diversity and difference, and a fundamental belief in universal rights and freedoms.

This definitive analysis of prime ministerial speeches and rhetoric is grounded in meticulous archival, primary document, and secondary literature research, and utilizes the latest theoretical approaches in the study of rhetoric, nationalism, and identity. Ultimately, Raymond Blake provides readers with a new way to see and understand what Canada is, and what holds us together as a nation.

This incredibly thorough analysis of the words of prime ministers will find an appreciative audience among scholars and students in Canadian and political history, and political science and rhetoric studies – and readers of Canadian history will discover a new take on Canada’s development as a nation.

The totem pole forms the foundation for this unique and important oral history of Canada. Its goal is both toweringly ambitious and beautifully direct: To tell the story of this country in a way that prompts readers to look from different angles, to see its dimensions, its curves, and its cuts. To see that history has an arc, just as the totem pole rises, but to realize that it is also in the details along the way that important meanings are to be found.  To recognize that the story of the past is always there to be retold and recast, and must be conveyed to generations to come. That in the act of re-telling, meaning is found, and strength is built.

When it comes to telling the history of Canada, and in particular the history of the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples, we need to accept that the way in which our history has traditionally been told has not been a common or shared enterprise. In many ways, it has been an exclusive and siloed one. Among the countless peoples and groups that make up this vast country, the voices and experiences of a few have too often dominated those of many others.

Reconciling History shares voices that have seldom been heard, and in this ground-breaking book they are telling and re-telling history from their perspectives. Born out of the oral history in True Reconciliation, and complemented throughout with stunning photography and art, Reconciling History takes this approach to telling our collective story to an entirely different level.

In this ground-breaking book, Crystal Gail Fraser draws on Dinjii Zhuh (Gwich’in) concepts of individual and collective strength to illuminate student experiences in northern residential schools, revealing the many ways Indigenous communities resisted the institutionalization of their children.

After 1945, federal bureaucrats and politicians increasingly sought to assimilate Indigenous northerners—who had remained comparatively outside of their control—into broader Canadian society through policies that were designed to destroy Indigenous ways of life. Foremost among these was an aggressive new schooling policy that mandated the construction of Grollier and Stringer Halls: massive residential schools that opened in Inuvik in 1959, eleven years after a special joint committee of the House of Commons and the Senate recommended that all residential schools in Canada be closed.

By Strength, We Are Still Here shares the lived experiences of Indigenous northerners from 1959 until 1982, when the territorial government published a comprehensive plan for educational reform. Led by Survivor testimony, Fraser shows the roles both students and their families played in disrupting state agendas, including questioning and changing the system to protect their cultures and communities.

Centring the expertise of Knowledge Keepers, By Strength, We Are Still Here makes a crucial contribution to Indigenous research methodologies and to understandings of Canadian and Indigenous histories during the second half of the twentieth century.

Crystal Gail Fraser is Gwichyà Gwich’in and has Scottish and English ancestry. Originally from Inuvik and Dachan Choo Gę̀hnjik (Tree River), Northwest Territories, Crystal works as a historian and Indigenous studies scholar in the amiskwacîwâskahikan (Edmonton) region, on Treaty 6 and Métis Lands.

The John Wesley Dafoe Foundation is happy to introduce the jurors for 2025 J.W. Dafoe Book Prize!

This year, Patricia Bovey, Dale Barbour, and Greg C. Mason will be selecting a longlist, shortlist, and winner.

A ten-book longlist and five-book shortlist will be announced in the coming weeks, with the winner announced October 14th. We can’t wait to share these outstanding titles with you!

Patricia Bovey, the Winnipeg Art Gallery’s Director Emerita, is a Winnipeg-based art historian, arts advocate, museologist, author, and professor. She served as a member of the Senate of Canada (2016-2023) and is a former Director of the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, the Winnipeg Art Gallery, and the Founder of St. Boniface Hospital’s Buhler Gallery. She has lectured and published extensively on western Canadian art, her most recent book being Western Voices in Canadian Art. She has received a number of publishing and community awards. 

She is currently representing Manitoba on the Boards of the Confederation Centre for the Arts, the National Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada, and the Roberta Bondar Foundation. She is a national Advocacy and Awareness committee member for Type 1 Diabetes and Ambassador for the Pan African Heritage Museum in Ghana currently under construction.

Dale Barbour grew up in Manitoba’s Interlake and worked in journalism and communications before getting into history. He has degrees from the University of Manitoba, (BA. (HON), MA) and the University of Toronto (PhD) and served as the University of Winnipeg’s H. Sanford Riley Postdoctoral Fellow in Canadian History in 2021.

Over the past seven years Dale has worked as a course instructor at the University of Winnipeg, University of Manitoba, and Brandon University teaching courses on Manitoba,Canada, and the world.

Dale has published two books: Undressed Toronto: From the Swimming Hole to Sunnyside, How a City Learned to Love the Beach, 1850-1935 (UofM Press, 2021) and Winnipeg Beach: Leisure and Courtship in a Resort Town, 1900-1967 (UofM Press, 2011). Currently Dale is working on a collaborative historical atlas focused on Winnipeg.

Specializing in economic policy, the basic annual income, health economics, and Indigenous economics, Greg C. Mason joined the Department of Economics at the University of Manitoba in 1974. Recently he has written on the economics of COVID, telemedicine, electronic health records, the modern annuity, and urban reserves. 

Greg’s  research encompasses the implementation of basic annual income (he served as an advisor to the Ontario Basic Income Pilot), health economics, and indigenous economic development.His teaching focuses on program evaluation, economic research and communication and creating viable online courseware in economics.