Big Men Fear Me
The Fast Life and Quick Death of Canada’s Most Powerful Media Mogul

Mark Bourrie’s 2022 biography of Globe and Mail founder George McCullagh, “Big Men Fear Me”, is a well-paced and entertaining dive into an oft-neglected area of Canadian history. The approachable prose, occasionally even caustic as the author gets in a jab or two of his own, avoids becoming an acade......more

The Globe and Mail bills itself as "Canada's National Newspaper". This biography tells the story of its founding publisher, George McCullagh. McCullagh, with financial backing from mining magnate William Wright, bought and merged The Globe and The Mail and Empire in 1936 to form a new newspaper, whi......more

A clunky but essential picture of early 20th century Canada, Bourrie’s book is filled with little portraits and scenes of forgotten Canadian power brokers in a country still finding its sense of self and that often still acts like a British backwater. George McCullagh makes a great central arc: a you......more

If you are bitten with a fascination in Canadian history, and happen to work in the news industry, this is a terrific read! The approach to compiling a biography of an important but forgotten Canadian who had a resonating impact on the country through a thorough collection of anecdotes and other his......more

Mark Bourrie has written a biography of someone I knew nothing about, powerful media mogul George McCullagh and a time in my province’s history, the province of Ontario, that I knew nothing about. The power and the reach of newspapers, and their close links with both federal and provincial governmen......more