'An absolutely first-rate biography.'
Senator Eugene Forsey
'Let us be clear from the outset. This is by far the best political biography of a Canadian figure to appear for some time.'
Julian Gwyn, Ottawa Citizen
'So absorbingly written that you really live the whole thing.'
Charles Ritchie
'Waite has written a biography that not only reads like a novel, but carries such a detailed knowledge of 19th-century political and social history that it will leave professional historians salivating. Indeed, if a picture is worth a thousand words, this book is worth ten thousand pictures.'
Colin Howell, Atlantic Provinces Book Review
'Elegant biography -- as witty and compassionate as it is scholarly and measured.'
Henry Bruce, Montreal Gazette
'Peter Waite is the most elegant stylist now writing Canadian history in English. His talent has never shown to better advantage than in this excellent biography of Canada's fourth Prime Minister. The wit and charm of the author's prose ornament this study of SIr John Thompson, perhaps the most gracious biography to appear since Creighton's Macdonald.'
J.E. Rea, Manitoba History