I bought Leaving the Past Behind: Newfoundland History from 1934 by Patrick O’Flaherty when I visited Newfoundland in 2012. This was an informative yet painfully slow read. After one week of reading I was only on page sixty. Tiny type supplemented by hundreds of endnotes per chapter made the read tedious. Chapter 4 had 427 notes alone and the book was only 237 pages long. I opted to ignore almost all of the notes until I had finished reading each chapter. By the time we arrived at Newfoundland’s role in World War II the pace picked up and then the path to confederation with Canada finally made the history interesting. Still, I didn’t reach page 100 until the ninth day of reading and finished the book after twenty days. It was a dreadful read at a glacial pace. I will not be keeping this book.
That said, the future of Newfoundland was put to a referendum (two in fact) after World War II and three sides campaigned their causes: confederation, responsible government and commission government. Neither side finished with a clear majority and with commission government finishing in third place it was removed from the ballot during the second referendum. It was a fight for those votes that led to a win for confederation. Joey Smallwood was the leading champion for confederation and he served as premier for almost 23 years. He was a beloved man of the people yet also a belligerent king of the castle. The author was not a fan of his nor a particular supporter of confederation, and let his biases show. The book cover depicts the unofficial flag of the island of Newfoundland, the symbolism of which has evolved to reflect a dissatisfaction with confederation (and a desire to secede, perhaps?).
The main focus was the history immediately before and after confederation, and O’Flaherty raced through the other decades, ending in 2010. I would have liked to learn more about Smallwood’s industrial project failures and since the author wasn’t a fan of Joey I wouldn’t think he’d hide the truth from his readers.