Talk:Ken McGoogan

merge proposals

The books by this author are not significant enough to warrant separate articles. It is better to place them as subsections on the author's article. Atrian 05:12, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree. Both books were published to international acclaim, and are significant enough to warrant separate articles. Fatal Passage not only spent fourteen weeks on national bestsellers lists, but won four major literary awards -- including the Drainie-Taylor Biography Prize, the Canadian Authors' Association History Award, and an American Christopher Award. The book makes a significant contribution to the history of Arctic exploration, and shows that John Rae discovered both the fate of the lost Franklin expedition of 1845 AND the final navigable link in the Northwest Passage (a finding vindicated by Roald Amundsen). Fatal Passage is now being made into a docudrama for History Channel and BBC (filming has begun in the Arctic).

Lady Franklin's Revenge represents a further important elaboration of McGoogan's revising of the history of Arctic exploration. It shows, for the first time, that Jane Lady Franklin was the greatest woman traveler of the early 19th century; and it tells the story of how, although as a woman she was denied a role in Victorian society, she seized control of that most masculine of enterprises, Arctic exploration, and shaped it to her own ends. McGoogan demonstrates that, received history to the Contrary, Sir John Franklin failed in his attempt to find a Northwest Passage -- but Lady Franklin turned this failure into a legendary triumph. Lady Franklin's Revenge, published and acclaimed internationally, recently won the University of British Columbia Medal for Canadian Biography.

Ken McGoogan is a leading author of narrative nonfiction (his books are on several courses) and Canadian history, and especially of Arctic exploration history. Recently, he was awarded the 2006 Pierre Berton Award -- which is the Giller Prize for writers of Canadian history. His principal works merit separate entries.