Pivot or Pirouette?

Pivot or Pirouette? The 1993 Canadian General Election tells the story of the most surprising election in Canadian history.

Tom Flanagan is a professor emeritus in political science at the University of Calgary. His book First Nations? Second Thoughts received the Donner Prize and the Canadian Political Science Association’s Donald Smiley Prize. From 1991 to 2012, he worked for Preston Manning, Stephen Harper, and Danielle Smith in various advisory capacities and as campaign manager. His experiences on the campaign trail are detailed in his book Winning Power: Canadian Campaigning in the Twenty-First Century.

J.W.J. Bowden, The Dorchester Review:

[Flanagan] is singularly suited to discuss this seismic election.

Susan Delacourt, Toronto Star columnist and author of Shopping for Votes:

Canada’s general election of 1993 certainly felt momentous at the time. But Tom Flanagan hasn’t given us simply a trip down memory lane. This is a rollicking, back-to-the-future ride, showing us the forces – and the tensions – that endure in this country, even when we believe the status quo is being shattered forever. I keep a lot of Flanagan’s writing close at hand as a reference tool. Pivot or Pirouette? is another volume in that impressive body of work.

Preston Manning, founder and leader of the Reform Party of Canada and leader of the opposition in Parliament:

Populism is to the politics of Western Canada what nationalism is to the politics of Quebec, and the world of populism is as distant from the academy as Earth is from Mars. But Professor Tom Flanagan is one of the few academic astronauts who has made the journey from Mars to Earth and back, and this account of his journey is well worth reading.