By the 1940s, other intellectual currents, most notably socialism, began to shape Trudeau's political world view and his interventions in the conservative politics of Quebec. Catholicism was certainly crucial in the early decades of his life, beginning with a Jesuit education at Colle'ge Jean-de-Brébeuf, and continuing to manifest itself with requests for permission to read proscribed books on the Vatican's Index well into his graduate education, and his deference to the church's sexual mores, which persisted until the 1950s. Drawing on diaries, school notes, published writings, and extensive correspondence – particularly with his mother Grace and a succession of female friends – English identifies a number of key influences on Trudeau's personal development. Perhaps the greatest strength of Citizen of the World is that it fleshes out the aspects of Trudeau's personal and intellectual development that earlier studies lacked (including Trudeau's own CBC-produced Memoirs). More interesting to him is the fact that so many of Quebec's leading nationalist and separatist leaders of the 1970s knew of Trudeau's past (indeed, a great number were his schoolmates) and yet chose not to use this knowledge as a political weapon. While Max and Monique Nemni, using the same documents, contended in Young Trudeau: Son of Quebec, Father of Canada (2006) that Trudeau's espousal of anti-Semitism and nationalism was sensational and shocking, English argues that this was not only typical of a Jesuit-educated youth in 1930s Quebec, but that Trudeau's embrace of both was quite mild in terms of the range of expression of these ideologies circulating in public discourse. This much is evident from the first two chapters, which cover Trudeau's life up to the Second World War. The portrait of Trudeau that emerges from English's narrative is a balanced one that carefully situates his personal development within the broader historical contexts of Quebec, Canada, and the world.

In Citizen of the World, University of Waterloo professor John English has taken full advantage of this rich documentary source to craft a compelling account of Trudeau's personal, intellectual, and political development from the year of his birth until his assumption of the office of prime minister. While thought-provoking books about Pierre Elliott Trudeau abound, it is only with the recent release of his personal papers that it has become possible to craft a more thorough biography of the charismatic, bilingual, and controversial man who served as Canada's prime minister from 1968 to 1984.

Citizen of the World by John English