This book is based on the public career of a highly controversial Canadian, Sam Hughes 1885–1916. He is one of the most colourful, even bizarre, figures in Canadian history.
Though he died in 1921, his name can still conjure up controversy and not a little misunderstanding. His long career—in so many respects the quintessential story of a poor backwoods Ontario farm boy who made good by his own efforts—continues to exert a fascination that few other Canadian political figures could duplicate.
Even though there has never been a major scholarly study of Sam Hughes, historians and other writers have developed definite opinions about him, and they are held nearly as vigorously as those of his contemporaries. These vary from insisting that Hughes was mentally unbalanced to proclaiming him a genius. Hughes’ defenders have rarely been professional historians. Neither side have not produced an extensive or definitive literature on Hughes in proportion to other figures of a similar public stature.
Whatever side the studies have taken, the assessments are still incomplete because they have not examined the entirety of Sam Hughes’ public life. To a large extent these limitations have allowed the folk image of him to persist. But Hughes had fibre and substance beyond this. Since historical figures must be explained in terms of their environment, this study tries to redress the previous imbalances by examining Hughes’ public career. It is the only way his historical significance can be explained and reasonable judgments made.

Ronald Haycock is professor of military history and war studies. He received his university education at Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of Waterloo and his doctorate from the University of Western Ontario. He is a former head of the Royal Military College’s History Department, Dean of Arts and Chairman of the War Studies programme. A former member of the editorial boards of the journals War and Society and Ontario History , he is currently on the Advisory Board of the Canadian Military Journal. He is a past president of the Canadian Military History Group and a member of the Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defence Academies. His previous publications include: [http://www.wlupress.wlu.ca/Catalog/haycock-image.shtml Image of the Indian] (WLU Press, 1970) and Men, Machines and War (WLU Press).

Keith Neilson is the author of a number of articles on British military history and Anglo-Russian relations. He is an associate professor at the Royal Military College of Canada and the author of Strategy and Supply: The Anglo-Russian Alliance 1914–17 (London, 1984).

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