The classic two-volume study of Trudeau and his impact upon Canadian society and politics Volume 1: The Magnificent Obsession Winner of the Governor General’s Award This volume examines the formative influences on Pierre Trudeau’s childhood, his knight-errant youth and early manhood, his charismatic ascent to the Liberal Party leadership, and his dramatic first decade as prime minister. It concludes with his bittersweet triumphs in fighting off the separatists in the 1980 referendum campaign and his battle with provincial premiers to patriate the Canadian constitution. Volume 2: The Heroic Delusion Winner of the John W. Dafoe Prize for Distinctive Writing This volume describes in fascinating detail the abiding liberal Pierre Trudeau’s quixotic confrontations with his neo-conservative opponents, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. A masterful analysis of the country’s political economy in the decades following World War II, it suggests that Trudeau’s delusion was that Canada could pursue a policy independent of her neighbours to the south.