This is a sad book sad because it deals with a period of Mackenzie's life which was marked primarily by bitterness and frustration and sad because the product of so very much research is in the end so disappointingly slight. The main aim of the book, to show that in his later political career Mackenzie ''was not a useless and obstructionist member of the legislature' (8), is modest enough. It may be said to have been achieved, but by wearisome and roundabout means. The only really important instance of Mackenzie's usefulness, his work as chairman of the select committee on public accounts in 1855, is not reached until page 245, and in any case it comes as no great revelation since Mackenzie's contribution at that time was fully acknowledged by J.E. Hodgetts in his Pioneer Public Service published in 1955. As for not being obstructionist, the evidence bears out this claim but not necessarily because Mackenzie didn't try. Acting almost alone in the legislature, he simply lacked the power to obstruct anything. Readers of After the Rebellion.
face an uphill struggle to get through a mass of detail and may at times wonder where it is all leading. Half of the book covers Mackenzie's life in exile in the United States, a period about which ''only the surface facts have been given' (8). The facts which were under the surface are now in plain view, but their relevance is not obvious. If Mackenzie's part in American affairs had been more than marginal, this part of the book might be of some interest to American readers, but it was not. Presumably, though, this book is intended for a Canadian readership. Mackenzie's American experience, especially at the Albany Convention of 1846, was no doubt of some application to his later Canadian career, but one, or perhaps two chapters on the period, not eleven, would have been enough. Dr Gates has decided that the question ''what is the fundamental significance of Mackenzie's career?' (324) is beyond the scope of her book.
