Arctic historian Ken McGoogan approaches the legacy of nineteenth-century explorer Sir John Franklin from a contemporary perspective and offers a surprising new explanation of an enduring Northern mystery.Two of Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin’s expeditions were monumental failures—the last one leading to more than a hundred deaths, including his own. Yet many still see the Royal Navy man as a heroic figure who sacrificed himself to discovering the Northwest Pass...

Using the successful format of How the Scots Invented Canada, Ken McGoogan takes the reader on a compelling journey through the lives of 50 accomplished Canadians born in the 20th century who have changed—and often continue to change—the great wide world.McGoogan profiles an astonishing array of activists, humanitarians, musicians, writers, comedians, visionaries, scientists and inventors, all of them transformative figures who have made an impact internat...

Elisha Kent Kane, scion of a wealthy and influential Philadelphia family, became a legend of 19th-century America. Before he was 30, he had descended into a volcano in the Philippines, infiltrated a company of slave traders in West Africa and narrowly survived hand-to-hand combat in the Sierra Madre while carrying a secret message from the president of the United States.Yet Kane would achieve his greatest fame by exploring the High Arctic, an adventure that began when he sailed in ...

Elisha Kent Kane, scion of a wealthy and influential Philadelphia family, became a legend of 19th-century America. Before he was 30, he had descended into a volcano in the Philippines, infiltrated a company of slave traders in West Africa and narrowly survived hand-to-hand combat in the Sierra Madre while carrying a secret message from the president of the United States.Yet Kane would achieve his greatest fame by exploring the High Arctic, an adventure that began when he sailed in ...

Not long after he began reading the handwritten, 820-page diary of Scottish explorer John Rae, Ken McGoogan realized that here was an astonishing story, hidden from the world for almost 150 years. McGoogan, who was originally conducting research for a novel, recognized the injustice committed against Rae. He was determined to restore the adventurer’s rightful place in history as the man who discovered not only the grisly truth about the lost Franklin expedition, but also the final link in ...

Not long after he began reading the handwritten, 820-page diary of Scottish explorer John Rae, Ken McGoogan realized that here was an astonishing story, hidden from the world for almost 150 years. McGoogan, who was originally conducting research for a novel, recognized the injustice committed against Rae. He was determined to restore the adventurer’s rightful place in history as the man who discovered not only the grisly truth about the lost Franklin expedition, but also the final link in ...

In response to right-wing extremism in the United States and around the world, Ken McGoogan offers lessons from history by looking back at the rise of authoritarianism and the collapse of European democracies in the lead-up to World War II.*INDIES Book of the Year Award FinalistIn Shadows of Tyranny, historian Ken McGoogan warns against the future by drawing on the past, setting the emergence of alt-right fascism in the US against ...

Bestselling author Ken McGoogan tells the story of those courageous Scots who, ruthlessly evicted from their ancestral homelands, were sent to Canada in coffin ships, where they would battle hardship, hunger and even murderous persecution.After the Scottish Highlanders were decimated at the 1746 Battle of Culloden, the British government banned kilts and bagpipes and set out to destroy a clan system that for centuries had sustained a culture, a language and a unique way of life. Th...

Bestselling author Ken McGoogan tells the story of those courageous Scots who, ruthlessly evicted from their ancestral homelands, were sent to Canada in coffin ships, where they would battle hardship, hunger and even murderous persecution.After the Scottish Highlanders were decimated at the 1746 Battle of Culloden, the British government banned kilts and bagpipes and set out to destroy a clan system that for centuries had sustained a culture, a language and a unique way of life. Th...

With this book-his most ambitious yet-Ken McGoogan delivers a vivid, comprehensive recasting of Arctic-exploration history. Dead Reckoning challenges the conventional narrative, which emerged out of Victorian England and focused almost exclusively on Royal Navy officers. By integrating non-British and fur-trade explorers and, above all, Canadas indigenous peoples, this work brings the story of Arctic discovery into the twenty-first century.Orthodox history celebrates such...

With this book-his most ambitious yet-Ken McGoogan delivers a vivid, comprehensive recasting of Arctic-exploration history. Dead Reckoning challenges the conventional narrative, which emerged out of Victorian England and focused almost exclusively on Royal Navy officers. By integrating non-British and fur-trade explorers and, above all, Canadas indigenous peoples, this work brings the story of Arctic discovery into the twenty-first century.Orthodox history celebrates such...

With Celtic Lightning, bestselling author Ken McGoogan plunges into the perpetual debate about Canadian roots and identity: Who do we think we are? He argues that Canadians have never investigated the demographic reality that informs this book—the fact that more than nine million Canadians claim Scottish or Irish heritage. Did the ancestors of more than one quarter of our population arrive without cultural baggage? No history, no values, no vision? Impossible.McGoogan writ...