A Real Mind: The Life and Work of Axel Hgerstrm (Law and Philosophy Library) Book

I cannot recommend this biography. It is dry, dispassionate and bewildering. Generally when you read a biography, you can tell the authors are invested in the subject, and that in turn makes you invested in the subject. This does not happen with this biography. You don't get the impression the authors like John Graves Simcoe, nor do they care enough to hate him - they don't seem particularly invested in him at all, and so as a reader, neither are you. I'm not entirely sure why they wrote this biography.

The book is a list of dry facts loosely strung together, without almost any sense of narration. The chapters do not have a cohesive theme, and huge events are treated with the same interest as dry real estate transactions (there is a LOT about real estate transactions). The subject's death receives a grand total of one sentence. The authors do not place anything in historical context, so unless you are extremely familiar with the American Revolution, Upper Canada, AND rural England in the late 1700s, you will probably struggle to understand the meaning of many of Simcoe's actions and decisions.

I wanted to read a biography of General Simcoe because I was very interested in the fact that he initiated the abolition of slavery in Upper Canada. Yet the authors seem completely uninterested in this fact. The abolition of slavery is treated with about two sentences, and isn't even listed in his list of accomplishments at the end of the book. I don't understand why the book spent pages upon pages detailing every man who ever worked for Simcoe, and every addition on to his estate in England, but only two sentences on this important historical fact. Simcoe later fought against the slave revolution in Haiti -this could have provided a chance for an in-depth, fascinating look at his anti-slavery views and the limits of them - but the book didn't bother.

It's clear an enormous amount of research went into this book, and I respect how much time the authors clearly spent uncovering minute details of Simcoe's life. I also appreciate the time they spent on his fascinating wife, Elizabeth, and his family life. But in the end, this book is very dry and frustrating, does not make its subject seem human at all, and fails to place his life in the context of his historical time.