Book Reviews
Read the archived reviews here
Aging in Canada: An informed, up-to-date look at Canada's aging population
From The Martlet
September 25, 2013
It's heard regularly – “Canada can’t afford to maintain its health-care system because of the aging baby boomers. They will bankrupt the system.” But scientific evidence suggests otherwise.
In the first of six Café Scientifique presentations from UVic's Centre on Aging, Dr. Neena Chappell and Dr. Marcus Hollander discuss the many issues covered in their book, Aging in Canada, published this month by Oxford University Press.
What do swear words say about society?
From CBC Radio
August 2013
Melissa Mohr, author of Holy S***: A Brief History of Swearing, speaks to Stephen about what curse words can tell us about the societies that use them, what expletives have to do with pain, and why she doesn't think swearing will ever be stamped out.
A Concise History of Canadian Painting
From National Gallery of Canada magazine
August 2013
Art history students in study carrels across this fine nation must be jumping with joy. Finally, one of their go-to books on Canadian art, Dennis Reid’s A Concise History of Canadian Painting, has come out in a third edition that is fully illustrated with large, glossy, colour reproductions—a welcome improvement over the largely black-and-white illustrations of earlier editions.At last, readers can grasp the full sensuality of Edwin Holdgate’s Nude(1930), with its rich browns and vivid blues, and the colourful liveliness of Greg Curnoe’s Corner (1975–1976).
A Review of Neville Thompson's Canada and the End of the Imperial Dream
From Times Literary Supplement
May 2013
Beverley Baxter grew to manhood at a time when an enterprising young man could make a tidy sum selling pianos in rural Ontario, but making it in the world of letters meant carving out a career in the Imperial Metropole. He had been in London during the First World War and returned in 1920 following the receipt of a telegram saying, "Come at your own risk", from Lord Beaverbrook.
A Review of Dr. David Wright's Downs: The history of a disability
From Journal of the Canadian Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
May 2013
One of my early memories (E.P.) is of holding my mother's hand while walking through Eaton's department store in Hamilton, Ontario (where the elevators still had human operators), and passing another boy and his mother in the crowd. I then turned to my mother and said, "We know him. Where have we seen him before?" I was told that the boy was "Mongoloid," and that children who had this disability bore similar facial features, and that we had not actually met him before. My father, being a doctor, later even explained about the extra chromosome (most of which I did not understand).
A Review of Dennis Reid's A Concise History of Canadian Painting
From Galleries West magazine
summer 2013 issue
A strange thing happened on the way to the third edition of this scholarly survey of some three centuries of Canadian art history: It was waylaid by women
A Review of Neville Thompson's Canada and the End of the Imperial Dream
From Publishers Weekly
April 8, 2013
From 1936 to 1960, Toronto-born British MP and newspaperman Beverley Baxter offered Canadians his observations on affairs across the Atlantic via his "London Letter" column in Maclean's, which remains, after more than a century, Canada's only weekly news magazine. Thompson, emeritus professor at the University of Western Ontario, writes that Baxter's great mission was to "keep Canada and Britain together" via a great imperial union where Canadians would remain proud British subjects.
"Beverley Baxter in Empireland"
From The Literary Review of Canada
April, 2013
The British Empire/Commonwealth, earlier a staple of Canadian historical writing, has fallen out of fashion. That partly reflects the adjournment sine die of the once acrimonious debates about Canada's place in an empire on which the sun was said never to set. Neville Thompson's new book is both an attempt to revive a neglected historical subject and an account of one man's effort to prevent the sunset.
"Why is science so obsessed with beauty?"
From Globe and Mail
March 21, 2013
Scientists hunting for the Higgs boson particle said recently that their latest results are "beautiful," continuing a line of talk that seems calculated to make the elusive "God particle" sound almost like the winner of a subatomic beauty pageant. "It makes you cry, how beautiful it is," said Eilam Gross, a scientist at the $9-billion Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, when preliminary evidence of the particle's existence was announced last summer. Gross laughed on camera as he talked about crying, maybe because particle physicists aren't supposed to tear up over their research results.
A Review of Mary Henley Rubio and Elizabeth Hillman Waterston's The Complete Journals of LM Montgomery: The PEI Years, 1901-1911
From Prairie Journal
March 19, 2013
This volume II is a continuation of the second handwritten journal by Montgomery... This facsimile edition reproduces the original text in its entirety, unlike the abridged edition published in 1984-1985.
"Hey, jerk-store: Insults are good for relationships, author says"
Author of A Slap in the Face spoke with The Globe about the social importance of the insult.
From Globe and Mail
March 15, 2013
Earlier this month, British boxer Curtis Woodhouse drove 100 kilometres to confront a Twitter troll. The online tormentor had maligned Woodhouse as a “complete disgrace” after he lost his “mickey mouse” lightweight title. Woodhouse posted a $1,500 bounty for the man’s street address and got in his car to deliver a knockout. (The troll promptly apologized, and the boxer drove home without making his bully’s acquaintance.)
"Is Mathematics A Criterion For Truth In The Natural World?"
From NPR
March 13, 2013
Some results in mathematics have the force of real truths, being independent of interpretation or context. When we state that 2 + 2 = 4 we know that this will be correct for any intelligent entity able to count. In algebra, given an equation, say, x + 3 = 4, we know that there is only one solution, x = 1. The same with Euclidean geometry that we learn in high school. Given certain axioms (assertions taken to be true that are the starting point to obtain results), we can prove a series of theorems that are unique. For example, that the sum of the internal angles of a triangle is 180 degrees, or that the circumference of a circle of radius R is 2πR.
A Review of David Orrell's Truth or Beauty
From V & A Magazine
March 11, 2013
The proliferation of popular science programmes on television has accustomed us to bespectacled men talking breathlessly about the beauty of mathematical formulae. Realising that their audience will be overwhelmed by shameful feelings of inadequacy if asked to follow them through any algebraic proof of Einstein's theory of relativity, these unnervingly jaunty scientists instead invoke the formula's epigrammatic elegance as proof of its truth.
"Dave Cousins, Waiting For Gonzo: review"
Waiting For Gonzo is an enjoyable comedy teen novel by Dave Cousins.
From The Telegraph
March 7, 2013
A humorous tone is evident from the start of Dave Cousins's Waiting For Gonzo. Marcus Osbourne, known as Oz, has moved from London's suburbia to a country village called Slowleigh — and it's not an easy transition. "If nowhere has a middle, then this is it," he says. "It's like I have been sent back in time!"
"Beautiful Mistakes"
From the Literary Review of Canada
March 5, 2013
Every January, several thousand mathematicians converge in a convention centre for a meeting of minds, rotating through the cities of San Diego, Baltimore, San Antonio, Seattle and Atlanta. This year, back in San Diego, the theme of the massive Joint Mathematics Society (attendees mostly comprising members of the American Mathematical Association and the Mathematical Association of America, plus a decent Canadian showing) was the “Mathematics of Planet Earth.”
"Truth or Beauty? Hold onto both."
From Vancouver Sun
March 4, 2013
Canadian mathematician David Orrell makes a challenging argument about the relationship between beauty and science in his new book, titled Truth or Beauty: Science and the Quest for Order (Oxford University Press).
There was a time when mainstream scientists were criticized for being too “mechanistic.” In other words, they argued the universe operated much like a machine.
"Standing up for Rights: The workplace gets equal at the Nelson Library"
From Nelson Star
March 1, 2013
Basically, Braundy wouldn't take “not equal” for an answer. It's exactly what feminists—both women and men—have been doing since those heady suffragist days when a vote was so much more than a vote; it was a principle.
International Women's Day is observed on March 8th every year. The day is both a celebration of how far we've come, and a sober reminder of where we have to go.
A Review of Christopher Hodson's The Acadian Diaspora: An Eighteenth-Century History
From Canadian History Magazine
March, 2013
American historian Christopher Hodson’s exploration of what happened to the Acadians after the British deported them by the thousands from the present-day Maritime provinces is bracketed by the deaths, half a world apart, of two men.
A Review of Peter Gossage and Jack Little's An Illustrated History of Quebec
From Life in Quebec
March, 2013
What are the names of the First Nations? What role did they play after the arrival of the French colonists? What part did the Catholic church play in the development of Quebec over the last four centuries? What is meant by the Duplessis era, the Quiet Revolution, Distinct Society, the Oka Crisis?
"Why do Oscar winners cry tears of joy?"
From Globe and Mail
February 22, 2013
Natalie Portman wept in 2011. Halle Berry sobbed in 2002. Tom Hanks choked back tears in 1994. Crying can be as much a part of winning an Oscar award as thanking loved ones and the Academy. In fact, happy tears are so prevalent that bookmakers like Ireland's Paddy Power have been known to take bets on whether performers will break down and cry when handed the coveted statuette.
"Science's 'beauty problem': Scientists increasingly confusing elegance & symmetry for truth"
The National Post speaks to David Orrell about the "beauty problem" and the seduction of science.
From The National Post
February 9, 2013
Symmetry, unity, harmony, elegance and beauty are concepts that crop up in science with striking regularity. From the music of the spheres that inspired the earliest Greek philosophers to modern supersymmetrical string theory, physics has been especially prone to mistake a beautiful theory for a true one. But there is a growing sense that biologists, psychologists, economists and even mathematicians can also be preoccupied with subjective aesthetics over falsifiable science, and confuse the one for the other.
"Why conservatives should conserve the environment: C2C Journal reviews Roger Scruton's new book"
From C2C Journal
February 5, 2013
The prolific English conservative philosopher Roger Scruton has remarkably wide-ranging interests. Unlike many professional philosophers, Scruton has pursued an extensive range of topics, addressing such diverse areas as aesthetics, intellectual history, moral philosophy, theory of mind, political theory, architecture and music. Whatever the topic, Scruton has earned a reputation as an erudite and eloquent writer whose ideas are accessible to the general reader. His new book, How to Think Seriously About the Planet: The Case for an Environmental Conservatism, is no exception.
"Are you going to get ripped off by the death of the penny? 'Salami slicing' explained"
From The National Post
February 4, 2013
As Canada eliminates the penny, and adds an obvious rounding error to every cash transaction, salami slicing has suddenly gained a new currency. Widely praised as a common-sense solution to the problem of a coin that costs more than it is worth, the end of the penny could also herald a new age of retail profiteering.
"Ultimately right, but sometimes tragically wrong "
A Review of Christopher M. Bell's Churchill & Sea Power
From The Chronicle Herald
February 3, 2013
Winston S. Churchill became prime minister on May 10, 1940, a moment when the British people confronted the greatest crisis in their history. He was not a popular choice among the governing elite. King George VI turned to him because the outgoing Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's heir apparent, the cautious, deeply religious Lord Halifax, had no stomach to be a war leader, unlike Churchill, who saw the role as the fulfilment of his destiny.
Read more...
"Books That Will Help You 'Wake Up!' Part 1"
From Zeitgeist New Brunswick
February 2, 2013
We have become a dumb down society through advertising propaganda, eye candy entertainment, a corporate factory style education system, austerity measures issued quietly by our governments, blindly accepting slave labor jobs, and an economic system based imaginary money within a pyramid scheme. The only way out of this sleepy zombie like state is through own acceptance of it. ...Below you’ll find a book list which in my opinion opens our mind to how we think, act and perceive the world around us as well as that which is beyond us.
Read more...
A Review of Dennis Reid's A Concise History of Canadian Painting, 3rd edition
From Heritage Matters
February, 2013
For more than 30 years, Dennis Reid's A Concise History of Canadian Painting has been the definitive volume on the art of a nation. Reid traces the development of distinctive movements, techniques, and subjects that would come to define Canadian art in the twentieth century.
"Alternative Approaches to Developing Anti-Poverty Policy"
From Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
February, 2013
Raghubar Sharma's Poverty in Canada (2012) describes several different broad approaches to understanding poverty: the culture of poverty, situational/environmental perspectives, stigmatization of the poor and social exclusion.
A Review of Christopher Hodson's The Acadian Diaspora
From Canada's History
February, 2013
American historian Christopher Hodson's exploration of what happened to the Acadians after the British deported them by the thousands from the present-day Maritime provinces is bracketed by the deaths, half a world apart, of two men.
"Home-love and Conservation"
A Review of Roger Scruton's How to Think Seriously About the Planet
From Cardus Magazine
January 21, 2013
How to Think Seriously About the Planet is aptly titled. An Oxford-trained philosopher, Roger Scruton spends over 400 pages considering the appropriate response to environmental issues with the seriousness and thoroughness of one who leaves no trail of argument unexplored. That said, the seriousness of his approach is balanced with a friendly, engaging tone sprinkled with abundant humour, and the combination of his topic with his tone makes his book highly readable.
A Review of David Orrell's Truth or Beauty
From The Sunday Times
January 20, 2013
For centuries, scientists have believed the universe to be rational and ordered, and that the laws governing it must therefore be straightforward. In this fascinating book, the mathematician David Orrell argues that this wish to find cosmic order has been motivated as much by an aesthetic impulse as by a quest for truth. Scientists and mathematicians want the universe to display qualities such as harmony, unity and symmetry. Above all, they desire it to be beautiful. James Watson, one of the biologists who discovered the structure of DNA, was convinced that '"the truth, once found, would be simple as well as pretty".
"Searching meditation on Canada's past, future"
A Book Review of Canada: Tomorrow's Giant
From The Winnipeg Free Press
January 19, 2013
Every once in a while, it is a tonic to immerse one's self in pure Canadiana.
And one can't get more Canadian than this account of a cross-Canada trip, undertaken in 1955, by the late Canadian journalist Bruce Hutchison.
Hutchison's account of his travels across Canada, from Newfoundland to British Columbia, was originally published in 1957, won a Governor General's Award for Creative Non-fiction and is now reissued by Oxford University Press as part of a series of significant titles of Canadian literature, thought and scholarship.
"Tired of those smug scientists? Thomas Nagel offers an antidote"
A Book Review of Mind and Cosmos
From The Globe and Mail
January 18, 2013
When it comes to science, ours is a paradoxical era. On the one hand, prominent physicists are proclaiming that they are on the verge of solving the riddle of reality and hence finally displacing religious myths of creation. That is the chest-thumping message of books such as The Grand Design, by physicists Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow, and A Universe from Nothing, by Lawrence Krauss. A corollary of this triumphal view is that science will inevitably solve all other mysteries as well.
On the other hand, science's limits have never been more glaringly apparent. In their desperation for a "theory of everything" – which unifies quantum mechanics and relativity and explains the origin and structure of our cosmos – physicists have embraced pseudo-scientific speculation such as multi-universe theories and the anthropic principle, which says the universe must be as we observe it to be because otherwise we wouldn't be here to observe it. Fields such as neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, behavioural genetics and complexity have fallen far short of their hype.
"For Everything You Need to Know About Beer"
A Book Review of The Oxford Companion to Beer
From Q Haute Cuisine
January 2013
Although beer is readily acknowledged to be the most popular alcoholic beverage on the planet, its range and diversity are not that well known beyond the small but fast-growing inner circle of aficionados bent on enjoying the superior taste of craft beer rather than succumbing to the marketing success of commercial lagers.
Beer has also been gaining credibility in the food world thanks to the increasing appreciation of beer pairings. What sommeliers have been doing with wine, cicerones are now doing with beer, leading many restaurants to refine their beer lists and organize food and beer events.
David Orrell, Truth or Beauty
From Quill and Quire
January/February 2013 Issue
". . . we may look back upon Truth or Beauty as an important manifesto for our age. But even if it doesn't, Orrell has provided an intriguing way of thinking about how we got here. "
L.W. Conolly, The Shaw Festival: The First Fifty Years
From the Theatre Research in Canada
January 2013
During its first fifty years (1962-2011) The Shaw Festival has been blessed with superb "house" photographers. Two in particular have been responsible for creating a stunning visual archive of the Festival's complex production record: R4obert C. Ragsdale created most fo the images through the 1979 season and since then David Cooper has been the company photography. Scott McKowen, graphic designer for Festival publications for more than twenty-six seasons (including world-class house programs for 200 productions, 40 covers of which are seen on two full pages of the book), had the critical task of selecting the hundreds of photographs for this new publication, The Shaw Festival: The First Fifty Years. His design of the book, with the myriad illustrations bringing productions to life (or, for those who have seen productions at the Festival, rekindling memories fo these unique theatrical experiences), has contributed enormously to the impact of this record of fifty years.
"Pioneer of democracy fought his battles with a heavy heart"
A Review of Michael S. Cross' A Biography of Robert Baldwin
From The Chronicle Herald
December 16, 2012
Robert Baldwin (1804-58) is remembered for his role in bringing responsible government (1848) to the province of Canada, formed in 1841 through an uneasy union of Upper and Lower Canada. Baldwin achieved his life's ambition by forming an alliance with Lower Canadian politicians, notably Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine.
His sympathy for French Canada was not simply a matter of expediency, for he sent his two sons and two daughters to receive a French education in Quebec. This was an unconventional choice for a unilingual Toronto Protestant politician of Irish extraction, in a province where the Orange Order had great power.
A Review of The Complete Journals of L.M. Montgomery
From Chronicle Herald
December 9, 2012
Growing up in Atlantic Canada, it's hard to escape the presence of Prince Edward Island's favorite redhead, Anne of Green Gables. For those who have grown up and still want to read more, Mary Henley Rubio and Elizabeth Hillman Waterston have given us The Complete Journals of L.M. Montgomery: The P.E.I. Years, 1889-1900.
At first, the idea of reading the personal diaries of someone long dead seems a little intrusive, and frankly, rather boring.
But L.M. Montgomery was not a boring person and if she were a dull writer, her books wouldn't be still devoured today by thousands of readers, mesmerized by the idea of a world that probably never existed. And just like that fantasy world, public perceptions of Montgomery are also probably off-base from the real woman. Waterston says the journals show a complex person.
David Orrell's Truth or Beauty
From the Winnipeg Free Press
December 8, 2012
Think of a beautiful thing that someone has made. What comes to mind? A poem, a painting, a song, a dance? What about an equation? Or pa da ab eq a scientific idea?
In the latter half of the last century, much effort among theorists of science was devoted to uncovering and displaying the imaginative side of the scientific enterprise; to show that scientists themselves were creative artists who, in contrast to the stereotype, had human qualities, too.
David Orrell, a British-based Canadian scientist specializing in applied mathematics, reiterates and outlines this esthetic interpretation of science, but adds a crucial caveat: the esthetic approach can also be detrimental to the progress of science.
The quest to make a theory or an equation beautiful has been overrated and can "lead us down the wrong track." This leads him to the search for a new conceptual approach to contemporary and future science.
A Review of A Concise History of Canadian Painting
From The Globe and Mail
December 8, 2012
For this lavishly illustrated history, one could scarcely be in better hands than those of Dennis Reid, former director of collections and research at the Art Gallery of Ontario. This third edition of the book contains new material on previously unacknowledged women painters in Canada, as well as Reid’s insights into artists from the 1980s and 1990s, including Alex Cameron, Mary Pratt, John Scott and Joanne Tod.
David Orrell's Truth or Beauty
From The Complete Review
December 2, 2012
In Truth or Beauty David Orrell considers how aesthetics, and specifically a reductionist ideal of 'beauty', have influenced scientific thought. He shows how scientists have repeatedly sought to establish orderly, unified, comprehensive, often neatly symmetric systems governed by rules that are simple and straightforward, and universally applicable — the kinds of equations that neatly fit on T-shirts. As he notes however, the aesthetic vision of the irreducible — the original atomic view, for example, of there being simple, basic building blocks to all matter — often turns out not to be accurate, as reality proves to be much more complex than first thought and hoped for; in addition, the rules often don't work universally but only under certain circumstances, and complex systems — including the many real-world ones that affect our everyday lives, from the weather to the functioning of the human organism — exhibit emergent behavior ("properties which emerge from the system but cannot be predicted using knowledge of the system's components alone").
Following Biblical Law
From Comment Journal
December 2012
It is undeniable that we live in a highly divisive politicized climate. Unfortunately, the church too often fails to show any real grasp of the relationship of the kingdom of God to politics. With the passing of another presidential election, the relation of biblical law to the laws of the nation-state has been a heated debate. What is the nature of biblical law? How best should it be understood? How does God's call to God's Torah people (both Israel and the church) to be his light to the nations help us conceive our relationship to citizenship within a given nation-state and questions like the proper order of marriage?
Both Jonathan Burnside's God, Justice, and Society and William J. Webb's Corporal Punishment in the Bible offer helpful insights in understanding the import of biblical law and its role. Burnside seeks to assist his reader through a canonical approach to the biblical texts and a commitment to interpreting the breadth of biblical law as a normalizing and universally applicable set of regulations. Webb offers his reader an understanding of the nature of biblical law through a particular issue: the practices of corporal punishment in light of Scriptures' ultimate ethical goals. Both authors offer the faithful significant tools for fruitfully navigating their world, but both also provoke key challenges to one another.
"Page 99 Test"of Truth or Beauty
From Page 99 Test Blog
November 26, 2012
Orrell applied the "Page 99 Test" to his new book, Truth or Beauty: Science and the Quest for Order, and reported the following:
'Truth or Beauty is about the role of aesthetics in science. The book is divided into three sections – "Infatuation", "Complication", and "Maturation" – which chart the relationship between science and beauty throughout history. Page 99 is found in the first chapter of "Complication": the topic is relativity and quantum theory, and this page is discussing the period a hundred years ago when Niels Bohr and other scientists were developing a new model of the atom . . .
'Page 99 captures the fundamental tension which runs through the book, between the aesthetic desire for simplicity and beauty, and the contingencies of messy reality. The same conflict is found today between the proponents of supersymmetric string theory (a more modern attempt to link physics with vibrating strings) and its critics who describe it as motivated more by aesthetics than by experimental evidence.'
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Nature reviews David Orrell's Truth or Beauty
"Books in Brief", Nature
November 22, 2012
The philosopher Bertrand Russell averred that mathematics has a beauty "sublimely pure, and capable of stern perfection". But is science inextricably allied to aesthetic beaty? In applied mathematician David Orrell's exploration of the Pythagorean quest to realise the cosmos mathematically, the cracks in that paradigm show. Orell swings from the ancient preoccupation with musical harmony and numerical ratios to Renaissance nature studies, the mechanistic approach and the physical sciences of today. Imperfect as it is, "messy" science, he argues, has a novel beauty of its own.
Canada Downsizes Military Bootprint, in War and Peace
From Inter Press Service
November 21, 2012
TORONTO—Canada's military buying binge under the current Conservative government has hit a financial brick wall in these austere times, but there is no nostalgic return in sight for Ottawa's once robust participation in United Nations-led peacekeeping missions . . .
"Canada doesn't have anything like the military spending of the United States, even per capita for the moment. But it is getting pretty big and it is not a bad idea when you have a bureaucracy that has been expanding steadily for an indefinite period of time to have a pause as you will and take a really cold, hard look," James, author of Canada and Conflict, told IPS.
Professor debunks myths surrounding Muslim family law
From the Vancouver Sun
November 17, 2012
In 2003, when a small organization, the Toronto-based Islamic Institute for Civil Justice (IICJ), applied for standing under the Arbitration Act of Ontario to provide officially recognized family arbitration services to the local Sunni Muslim community, it set off a firestorm of angry debate. While the application itself was a modest request to have official recognition under Ontario law of voluntary arbitrations on family matters that were already offered to the province's Sunni Muslims by the IICJ and by some local imams, particularly around marriage and divorce, public response was swift and intense.
This was true despite the fact that similar standing had long been enjoyed by similar organizations within Jewish and Ismaili communities in Ontario....
Baldwin founder of 'the basics of modern Canada,' says author Cross
From The Hill Times
November 5, 2012
OTTAWA—An unlikely politician who did not anticipate the effect his ideas would have on the making of Canada, Robert Baldwin is a startling and often-overlooked figure in Canadian history, says writer and professor Michael Cross.
"I think that in many respects he's the founder of the basics of modern Canada," said Mr. Cross in an interview with The Hill Times.
In A Biography of Robert Baldwin: The Morning-Star of Memory Mr. Cross uncovers Baldwin's surprisingly long-term effect on the nation as a champion of responsible government for the colony and for unity between Upper and Lower Canada. He also uncovers Baldwin's startling inner life.....
Why 'efficient markets' are merely wishful thinking
From The Globe and Mail
November 4, 2012
While most of our attention these days is focused on the tight and tense U.S. presidential election and what the results may portend for Canada's increasingly cloudy economic prospects, Europe is proving an excellent laboratory for politicians and economists still preaching the benefits of austerity......
Portrait of a Province
From Montreal Review of Books
Fall 2012 Issue
From the Proclamation of 1763 and the Quebec Act of 1774 up to Bill 101 and Bill 22, and the CEQ and the FTQ, the CSN and the FLQ, Lionel Groulx and Maîtres chez nous … Heck, it gets confusing.......
Anne author had trouble with P.E.I. winters
From CBC News
October 09, 2012
A newly released edition of the journals of Anne of Green Gables author Lucy Maud Montgomery includes details of some of her early battles with depression.
The new edition contains about twice as much material as a 1985 published version of Montgomery's journals, which was edited to offer a more upbeat version of her life. This new publication - The Complete Journals of L.M. Montgomery: the PEI Years 1889-1900 - includes both happy and sad times, including some of her early bouts with depression......
"New Book Evaluates Canada's Evolving Foreign and Defence Policy"
From The Ottawa Citizen
October 7, 2012
Here is a news release about a new book (somewhat short….only 160 pages) about Canadian defence and foreign policy: Toronto, Ontario – Canada And Conflict evaluates Canada's evolving foreign policy in a world that changed a great deal in the in the wake of September 11, 2001.
Commendable examination
From The Prairie Journal
October 02, 2012
James, Professor of International Relations and director of the Centre for International Studies at the University of Southern California, was an Eccles Professor of North American Studies for the British Library in 2011. His study was supported by the British Association for American Studies. This is a commendable examination of the impact of the government and domestic politics on Canadian security policy,......
Gruesome details emerge of how early Canadian politician arranged to have stomach sliced open after death
From The National Post
October 01, 2012
About a month after the death of Robert Baldwin, perhaps the most pivotal figure in Canada's pre-Confederation evolution, his son and two other relatives opened the Toronto crypt where his body lay frozen in January 1859 and watched as a doctor sliced the abdomen of the corpse,......