In The Firebrand, William Kilbourn brings to life the rebel Canadian hero William Lyon Mackenzie. A skilled historian and an entertaining writer, Kilbourn reveals Mackenzie’s complex character: able political editor, shrewd recorder of his times, efficient first mayor of Toronto, and gadfly of the House of Assembly. Kilbourn vividly recreates the ill-fated Mackenzie-led march on Toronto during the Upper Canada Rebellion of 1837, an uprising of brave but comical farmers unprepared to meet musket...