The Great Depression

Over 1.5 million Canadians were on relief, one in five was a public dependant, and 70,000 young men travelled like hoboes. Ordinary citizens were rioting in the streets, but their demonstrations met with indifference, and dissidents were jailed. Canada emerged from the Great Depression a different nation.

The most searing decade in Canada's history began with the stock market crash of 1929 and ended with the Second World War. With formidable story-telling powers, Berton reconstructs its engrossing events vividly: the Regina Riot, the Great Birth Control Trial, the black blizzards of the dust bowl and the rise of Social Credit. The extraordinary cast of characters includes Prime Minister Mackenzie King, who praised Hitler and Mussolini but thought Winston Churchill "one of the most dangerous men I have ever known"; Maurice Duplessis, who padlocked the homes of private citizens for their political opinions; and Tim Buck, the Communist leader who narrowly escaped murder in Kingston Penitentiary.

In this #1 best-selling book, Berton proves that Canada's political leaders failed to take the bold steps necessary to deal with the mass unemployment, drought and despair. A child of the era, he writes passionately of people starving in the midst of plenty.

OVERVIEW: The worst of times

1929
1. The Great Repression
2. The legacy of optimism
3. Crash!
4. The world of 1929

1930
1. "Not a five cent piece!"
2. Mother's boy
3. Mrs. Bleaney's clouded crystal ball
4. "Bonfire, Bennett"
5. Old-fashioned nostrums

1931
1. Still fundamentally sound
2. Rocking the boat
3. The Red Menace
4. Quail on toast
5. Blood on the coal
6. Nine on trial

1932
1. The dole
2. Shovelling out the unwanted
3. Boxcar cowboys
4. Restructuring the future
5. An attempt at political murdern

1933
1. The shame of relief
2. Death by Depression
3. Childhood memories
4. Making headlines
5. The regina Manifesto
6. Bible bill

1934
1. The seditious A.E. Smith
2. Radio politics
3. Harry Steven's moment in history
4. The year of the locust
5. Pep, ginger, and Mitch
6. The Pang of a Wolf
7. Slave camps

1935
1. Bennett's New Deal
2. Speed-up at Eaton's
3. The tin canners
4. On to Ottawa
5. The Regina Riot
6. Changing the guard

1936
1. State of the nation
2. The weather as enemy
3. Le Chef, the Church, and the Reds
4. Birth control on trial
5. Abdication

1937
1. The rocky road to Spain
2. Dead in the water
3. itch Hepburn v. the CIO
4. The Prime Minister and the dictator
5. The black blizzard
6. Bypassing democracy

1938
1. A loss of nerve
2. Trampling on the Magna Carta
3. Bloody Sunday
4. The Nazi connection
5. Keeping out the Jews

1939
1. A yearning for leadership
2. Back from the dead
3. The royal tonic
4. War

Afterword: The first convoy

Author's Note
Sources
Bibliography
Index