Bastards and Boneheads: Our Glorious Leaders, Past and Present

Some might say that while he was in the PMs office, Trudeau was a bastard while others contend that Chretien is just simply a bonehead - or would that be 'la bonehead.' Whatever opinions we hold or languages we speak, all Canadians can agree that our nation has had its share of both model and muddled leaders. Will Ferguson leads us down the garden path to Canada's schizoid past in Bastards & Boneheads. As with his other successful titles, including Why I Hate Canadians and I Was a Teenage Katima-Victim, Ferguson sports a variety of no-holds-barred opinions and attitudes in this hilarious commentary.

A hilarious new system for evaluating Canada's political leaders, from the best-selling author of Why I Hate Canadians. This is it! After years of research, often late into the night, best-selling author Will Ferguson has come up with the most sophisticated system ever devised for evaluating Canadian leadership. It's called "Bastards and Boneheads." Bastards succeed. Whether their goals are noble or immoral, Bastards are ruthless. Active. They cause events to unfold by an act of focussed will. Boneheads fail, usually by stumbling over their own two feet. Boneheads are reactive. Inept. They cause events to unfold mainly by accident. Bastards screw Canada. Boneheads just screw up. "Bastards and Boneheads" makes an excellent parlour game. Pierre Trudeau was a Bastard. Joe Clark was not. Brian Mulroney managed to be both. Your turn: Jean Chretien- Bastard or Bonehead? But Ferguson doesn't limit himself to the prime ministers. No, sir. He takes on the full sweep of Canadian history, examining and evaluating the key personalities behind our most momentous events. When the English captured Quebec in 1759, was it a "Battle of Boneheads" or a "Contest of Bastards"? Was the War of 1812 won by Bastards? Or lost by Boneheads? From the internment of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War to Canada's contribution to the Holocaust, from the battle for women's rights to the rise of the separatist movement, Will Ferguson looks at our past head-on, warts and all. This is history on the edge: opinionated, hard-hitting, outrageous and always thought-provoking. Watch out, Canada. Will Ferguson is headed our way.

Truly a must read for any Canadian! Ferguson presents an accessible look at Canada's political history that is equally interesting for the neophyte and the master. By humanizing the characters of our past and transcribing historical events onto current ones, the book offers a new understanding of the fabric that is Canada's past -- and therefore our present. Sometimes megalomaniacal, sometimes self-depreciating, Ferguson writes with enough wit and charm to make any of us enjoy a good lesson in political history.

Will Ferguson is the best-selling author of Bastards and Boneheads: Canada's Glorious Leaders Past and Present, Canadian History for Dummies and the tongue-in-cheek survey Why I Hate Canadians. His first novel, Generica, was published in spring 2001