Harold Wilson is said to have assured his biographer, who protested that he was not a socialist, that neither was he. If anyone is looking for a partisan encomium in this excellent book, it won't be found.

To some extent, this is a history of the office of Prime Minister. Harold Wilson led a party which is alleged to be all about breaking with the past and forging a new path in accordance with the lights of the supposed, latest insights of its followers. But the whole exercise of writing an historical book such as this begs questions about the way he related to such ideas.

Harold Wilson was a statistician extraordinary, of course. But this work, written in the early years of his retirement, shows he was also very historically aware.

Yet the main feeling I got was that the most remarkable thing about the book is that it was written at all, that is, authored by someone who held the office of Prime Minister. And he pulls it off, too. (Some other, former British Prime Ministers would not have sounded as convincing: for example, could John Major write an authentic-sounding work on why he perfected the legacy of Edmund Burke in the Conservative Party? or Gordon Brown, on how he and the legacy of Keir Hardie ought to stick together?)

The Prime Minister of whom Harold Wilson reminds me most is Stanley Baldwin, who gets quite sympathetic treatment in the book. This is in the sense that both men, who exercised more than one term of Prime Ministerial office, were outwardly affable, mediator figures whose own, personal positions were often obscure and elusive, to the frustration of ministerial colleagues and the bafflement of the public.

So Harold Wilson, like Baldwin, as a highly astute practitioner of the art of the possible? Maybe this, rather than party ideology, is what being Prime Minister is more about?

Peter Newman has done the impossible: left the reader with the nagging feeling that, with treatment like this, maybe one should occasionally start feeling sorry for Mulroney after all. (Viz, John Diefenbaker's House of Commons hatchet job on Lester Pearson in 1957). But following the constellation of overwhelmingly justifiable Mulroney revelations tending to the critical - elsewhere taxonomically regurgitated - one yet suspects that this particular exercise in muckraking will rebound on the raker.

This book does not really add much to the sum of human knowledge, but it leaves a taste in the mouth usually associated with the complaints department of a grocery chain.

But, then, in the Andy Warhol-style 15 minutes of fame society which Western countries have descended into, it is the sort of thing that sells, to the detriment of extrapolations regarding the human condition.

There was more to 'Mike' Pearson than met the eye.

But the reader would not know it through reading this book.

As a series, 'The Canadians' is intended to be a helpful introduction to a young readership of prominent fellow citizens of historical import. Undoubtedly this short book, too, is put together with the concise summaries of salient periods of the life under scrutiny which are a hallmark of the series.

In such a book one would expect - and one gets - a sense of the importance of Mr Pearson's adoption of Medicare.

But in a number of ways the writer's treatment of her subject seemed disappointing.

The flag issue, which Lester Pearson raised as an incoming Prime Minister in a minority government, evoked huge controversy, but the terms in which the writer describes the whole episode seem almost bland, in comparison with some of the comments evinced from critics, notably John Diefenbaker, who said that Mr Pearson had thereby supremely divided Canadians. This is a book about Mr. Pearson and not Mr. Diefenbaker, but the writer chooses to ignore some of the more unflattering responses to Mr. Pearson's discarding of the historic Red Ensign, even leaving aside the question of who was right.

Again, we do not read much that is negative of Mr Pearson's commissioning of a judicial enquiry into the actions of his Progressive Conservative ministers: a step which caused huge controversy at the time.

As expected, in the book much is made of Lester Pearson's diplomatic career, and his winning of the Nobel Peace Prize. One wonders whether an detached assessment of his Prime Ministerial office independently of this achievement is really possible.

As expected also, the fact that Lester Pearson talent-spotted Pierre Trudeau, and expended much energy on inter-provincial issues is a major point of the book. What we do not quite get is the sense that these energies were arguably at the expense of Canada's constitutional continuity.

In places, the writer makes rather sweeping assumptions. She deems Christianity to be irrelevant to Canadian heritage in terms which some readers will find distasteful, ignoring - at the very least - that ethical humanitarian discourse comparable to Mr Pearson's had been promoted influentially within the Canadian political tradition by - yes - the Rev. J S Woodsworth, heavily influenced by Christian tradition.

Some of her portrayal of Mr Pearson is plain wrong. The writer tries to show Mr Pearson as someone unambiguously loyal to the Crown - whereas his posthumous memoirs showed he envisaged Canadian republicanism.

In summary, something seems missing, and it is admittedly very hard to define whether this lack is derived from the writer or from her subject. If the latter option is possible, then certainly it can be said also that the writer has not delved deeply into some of the assumptions inherent in - but often unspoken - the discourse promoted by prominent government figures of the period.

This, then, is a somewhat blandly written book. In a sense the writer does - possibly unwittingly - capture the bland and elusive essence of the vague humanitarian rhetoric which Mr Pearson espoused for so long, without really acknowledging it as such.

This book is presumably intended to cast light, for the benefit of young people, on what Lester B. Pearson meant for Canada. The eulogy of the minister of Christchurch in December 1972, when he said that the late Lester Pearson had gone 'into the distance...playing his flute', arguably captures the elusiveness of what he stood for, but this book does not adequately give me a fuller sense of what this was.

This is a monumental history of the Ford Motor Company, made all the better for its sometimes brutally honest depiction of Henry Ford's woeful sidelining by macabre racial theories and strong-arm tactics against labour organizers. (Cromwell's enjoinder to his portrait painter: 'warts and all', comes to mind.) With his failings, the sheer energy and zeal of Henry Ford comes across strikingly in this work.

Is this book all about Henry Ford, though? or even about an especially far-sighted corporate board which has successfully weathered many storms?

I would submit that this remarkably detailed and magisterial book is really about the confluence of many fortuitous factors: not only the physical confluence of the waters of the Detroit River providing a much needed resource to Ford's factories, but also a many factors which combined to make America (and neighbouring Canada, too, with its Ford factories) what it became in the 20th Century: capital, an integrated hinterland and supply line, the thus far quintessentially American quest for efficiency, a vast labour force and (not least - and despite Henry Ford's pacifism) participation in cataclysmic world wars in which Ford factories played such a prominent part.

Thus, this is a book about the remarkable Ford family, certainly; about an outstanding corporation, indeed; but also about the way the Ford Motor Company has been entwined with the greatness of American economic achievement.

What happens to Ford - and to America, and to overseas competitors - in the middle years of the 21 Century would make a fascinating appendix to Mr. Brinkley's outstanding work, years hence.

Few people really get to know an American President.

This book purports to show how a President such as Calvin Coolidge could remain an ethically sensitive and upright character while presiding over a maelstrom of competing interests - overt and hidden - during the Roaring Twenties, as the era of the Robber Barons drew to a close.

In a sense, this is how every Presidential contender presents him- or herself.

This book alleges that Coolidge was different.

I do not necessarily buy this, but it is true that his native New England had a strong Christian and Puritan tradition, which the rural Vermont of his youth reflected, to the extent that it was preserved in the manner of his at least superficial, public deportment during his years of office as Governor of Massachusetts, Vice President and, after the timely death of Harding, President.

This book is somewhat of a thesis in order to claim that a President can eclipse the greasy pole, up which he or she has climbed to reach high office. Or, put differently, that American political culture can, almost uniquely to the human condition underlying political cultures, offer a repository of ethical purity which negates Augustine's division between the Two Cities, temporal and spiritual.

I am not convinced.

And while few people really get to know an American President - and very few were really on intimate terms with 'Silent Cal' - yet the especially American attempt to project Presidential contenders as glowing, ethical paragons offering spiritual fulfillment is undoubtedly an inherently and abiding American reflex and instinct, into which this book taps quite deeply.

The local dimension of history is sometimes overlooked or relegated to supposed lesser importance.

But a book such as this pictorial history of The Beach area of eastern Toronto makes local history come alive.

This book includes much information on the Kingston Road approaches to Toronto and about life over the past century along the lakeshore, east of the city centre of Toronto.

The section about the historic Ashbridge Estate is particularly informative and containing detail not easily available from other published sources.

This book makes a welcome addition to anyone familiar with the east end of Toronto and an interest in local history.

This book is certainly a considerable achievement. The insights into the various personalities involved are vivid and effective: in fact, effect would be a key word in Mr Cohen's presentation. Some of the portraits are very engaging, especially those of Frances Perkins.

In places the writer fails to get elementary facts right. He says on p. 87 that Budget Director Lewis Director, with Cabinet rank in 1933, was aged 38. Then on p. 109 he says that Henry Wallace, at 44 'was the youngest member of the new Cabinet'. One is left wondering, what else that has escaped one's notice has similarly been painted with a broad brush?

The impression that one gets is that, in the view of the writer, the New Deal programs, with their enormous costs, not only were specific measures for specific times but that they established for all time the superiority and rectitude of high spending and taxation. Obviously this is a matter of opinion. But Mr Cohen writes as if the question is more self-evident that it actually may be.

This book is so engaging and the reader can easily warm to the writer's evident deep sympathy for his subject. But because of the reservations, enumerated above, I do not feel justified in giving it more than 3 stars.

Canadian history - contrary to popular belief - is not boring, but colourful. With regard to Ontario's history, some of the main actors were especially so. This excellent book - the word 'outstanding' is on the tip of my tongue - depicts how the many eccentric, colourful personalities have combined to fit an enthralling history of Canada's largest province.

Mitchell Hepburn, J. J. Morrison of the United Farmers, George Drew: one wonders how such a concentration of odd characters could have emerged at about the same time.

Some of the Province's notables were inherently great. Sir John MacDonald would have to come into this category. Others - Mitch, Robarts, et al. maybe had greatness thrust upon them.

It seems that nearly every sentence written by Bothwell is pithy and overlaid with a substratum of humour, showing that the author at least is not overawed by the eccentrics and curious Micawbers (waiting for something to turn up) that he so very well describes.

One very serious point which does come through the book is that, while at Confederation Ontario was seen substantially in its relation with other Provinces, especially its French-speaking neighbour, yet by the mid to late 20th century so much of Ontario's economy and life was bound up with events and economic developments south of the border. Ontario and other Canadian provinces are now almost as ships in the night (or so it seems, sometimes). Or put another way, if automobile plants can be built by the Detroit River and Lake Erie on the American side, so too they can be on the Ontario side - especially if the tariffs make it advantageous. The book ends before the advent of NAFTA, but increasing economic integration underlines the trend that Ontario's economic life is bound up with that of the US. In fact, a map merely confirms the energy industry's realities: Niagara hydro has played an important energy role on both sides of the border and the author gives a stimulating account of the upheavals brought about by the development of the hydro in the province. And what of the advent of television and the wider media? from where is much of Ontario's TV diet derived? This book will not be read with pleasure by Canadian nationalists, whether this be good, bad or indifferent.

Another serious aspect is the towering influence of the long serving Premier Leslie Frost, who, unlike Mitch, eschewed confrontation with Ottawa, and unlike his predecessor George Drew, was measured in his pronouncements and thus alienated far less potential opponents.

This book can be picked up anywhere and one can read on with enthrallment. It is so well written and the writer - with his serious points notwithstanding - clearly warms to the Ontarians at whom he also so regularly pokes fun.

From a WW2 military journalist to the 2000 US Presidential elections: this is quite a span of years and experiences.

This book is full of anecdotes, which in themselves may be of interest; it does not purport to be strong on historical narrative or analysis.

There are some interesting insights into the way the politicians thought around whom the late Mr Hewitt moved. For example, he asks, Why should it be considered 'conservative' to insist upon a strict interpretation of one Amendment to the US Constitution, but 'progressive' when it comes to the strict interpretation of another. It seems that Mr Hewitt discerned a deafening silence in response to his question.

There is a hilarious account of his gentle put down of Nixon and JFK when he was preparing Nixon for the TV debate with Kennedy. Out of the corner of his eye, seeing JKF arrive, he indicates he said: 'I guess you two know each other'...

This is the story of how the storytellers of Watergate - Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein - became the story: usually a journalist's nightmare.

In their cases, what they helped uncover was so monumental at least in its effects that they will always be identified with the heady days between the June 17 1972 break-in at the Watergate Complex and the resignation of Richard Nixon in August 1974.

A powerful idea which I hoped to - and did indeed - see in this book, was recognition of the role of Ben Bradlee in standing by his reporters. In fact, the Washington Post as a whole was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for its Watergate coverage.

I also expected to - and did - see something of an explanation of the dilemma faced especially by Woodward in 2005, when an ailing and mentally feeble Mark Felt's family and lawyer went public and identified him as one of Woodward's main sources.

Usually reporters quit their paper when events cause them to become the news. The fact that Woodward (at least) stayed at the Post, and both of them continued distinguished careers in journalism, is a tribute to the stature of their work, or so goes the conventional wisdom.

As someone who studied French politics, however, I do wonder whether a book such as this actually demonstrates the considerable comprehension gap between the United States and Europe, where for a nation's executive to be suspected of seeking to use strong-arm tactics to influence the media and the judiciary would more likely act as fuel for in-grained public cynicism than for the shock of discovery.