The Big Red Machine: How the Liberal Party Dominates Canadian
Politics, Stephen Clarkson, Vancouver: University of British Columbia
Press, 2005, pp. xii, 335.
Stephen Clarkson's The Big Red Machine offers an
insightful chronicle of the Liberal Party of Canada's electoral
behaviour over a period of thirty years. By bringing together revised
versions of his previously published accounts of the Liberal Party's
successes and failures in the nine general elections held between 1974 and
2004, Clarkson provides a unique opportunity for serious reflection on
Liberal Party dominance of twentieth-century Canadian politics. Beyond
that, however, his accessible and compelling presentation of the story of
Liberal electoral politics offers a nostalgic review of the events and
personalities that shaped the political journey from Pierre Elliott
Trudeau to Paul Martin. In accomplishing this, Clarkson has produced a
book that will be of as much interest to non-academic followers of
Canadian politics as it is to serious students of partisan politics.