Elusive Destiny: The Political Vocation of John Napier Turner - Hardcover

Exhaustively detailed and based on interviews with key people, including Turner himself, the book provides the first complete account of a man whose rise and fall still stands as one of Canada's most intriguing political stories. -- Mark Kennedy * Postmedia News * If John Turner had been elected prime minister, Canada would be an entirely different country ... there would never have been a Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, the Bloc Quebecois and Reform parties would likely not have been formed and `the fiscal base for Canadian social democracy would have been stronger and social programs better preserved under a Turner administration,' according to a new biography on the former prime minister by Carleton University professor Paul Litt. -- Bea Vongdouangchanh * The Hill Times * "Finally, at 82, Turner's life and career in politics receive appropriate recognition in Elusive Destiny, a biography by Carleton University historian Paul Litt that is one of the best Canadian political books of the year." -- L. Ian MacDonald * London Free Press * A compelling biography of a tragic political figure ... [and] an important history of Canadian politics in the 1970s and 1980s and, most important, chronicled the first years of the decades-long self-immolation of a once-great political party. -- John Ibbitson * The Globe and Mail * Former prime minister John Turner's life and career receive appropriate recognition in Elusive Destiny: The Political Vocation of John Napier Turner, one of the best Canadian political books of the year. -- L. Ian MacDonald * Montreal Gazette * New biography of Turner ... is a valuable, new addition to that recorded history ... the book chronicles Turner's political career through some powerful Liberal highs and lows of the latter half of the 20th century. -- Susan Delacourt * The Toronto Star * Is it time to revisit the record of John Turner? Thanks to biographer Paul Litt, and his new book on John Turner, the answer is yes. -- Michael Harris * iPolitics * "With the advantage of time and the depth of Litt's book, the accusations that Turner was yesterday's man by the late 1980s seem more accurate than ever, especially given a media environment closer in time and tone to the Kardashian-Humphries wedding than the Kennedy-Nixon debate." -- Dan Rowe * Quill and Quire *

This book will be of interest to political scientists and historians and find wide appeal with the general public.