83 results for "History"

Fishing with John

Edith Iglauer
This is a love story; an unlikely convergence of two people from different worlds who were able to make a rich and tender life together, and not only endure each other's company in alarmingly close quarters but revel in it. Edith Iglauer was born in Cleveland and lived an urban, sophisticated life in New York until she met and married John Daly, a commercial fisherman in British Columbia. She spent more than four years on his forty-one-foot troller, the Morekelp until his sudden death. John Daly was an impassioned and greatly talented fisherman who was convinced that he could "think like a fish"; an amateur philosopher who worked out, and followed, an orginal set of beliefs and principles; a mystic who, after forty years of fishing, felt himself to be at one with the sea and the mountains along the British Columbia coast; a scholarly looking, high-spirited, full-blown eccentric who covered the white walls of his pilothouse with his favorite quotations in bold black letters ("Lawyers spend their professional careers shoveling smoke. O.W. Holmes") Fishing with John established Edith Iglauer as one of BC's most popular writers. This unusual West Coast love story sold 16,000 copies in hardcover and continues to be a bestseller in paperback.
Harbour Publishing Company, Limited 1988 312 pages

"At the barricades": a memoir

Borovoy, A. Alan
Best known as General Counsel of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, a position he held for over 40 years, A. Alan Borovoy was at the centre of many of the most profound and difficult public debates of last half century. In At the Barricades, Borovoy reflects on the events that have shaped the Canadian political legal landscape from the Cold War of the 1950s and 60s to the “war on terrorism” in the 21st century. Along the way he provides a first-hand account of Québec’s FLQ crisis of 1970, the protests regarding the abortion controversy, the battles over free speech, hate speech, and pornography, and the struggles to protect the rights of Aboriginal peoples, the economically disadvantaged, and victims of police misconduct. This book recounts the life of an activist; always principled and compassionate, usually controversial, often very funny, and never dull. It should be read by anyone who is interested in how we got to where we are today and concerned about where we are going.
Irwin Law 2013 364 pages

This Is My Country, What's Yours? A Literary Atlas of Canada

Noah Richler
Winner of the 2007 B.C. Award for Canadian Non-fiction A Globe and Mail Best 100 Book (2006) National Post Best Books (2006) A bold cultural portrait of contemporary Canada through the work of its most celebrated novelists, short story writers, and storytellers. Stories are the surest way to know a place, and at a time when the fabric of the country seems daily more uncertain, Noah Richler looks to our authors for evidence of the true nature of Canada. He argues why fiction matters and seeks to discover — in the extra-ordinary diversity of communities these writers represent — what stories, if any, bind us as a nation. Over two years, Richler has criss-crossed the country and interviewed close to one hundred authors — a who’s who of Canadian literature, including Wayne Johnston, Michael Crummey, Alistair MacLeod, Gil Courtemanche, Jane Urquhart, Joseph Boyden, Miriam Toews, Yann Martel, Fred Stenson, Douglas Coupland, and Rohinton Mistry — about the places and ideas that are most meaningful to their work. The result is a journey through the reality of Canada and its imagination at a critical point in the country’s evolution. Within thematic chapters he exposes our “Myths of Disappointment” and considers the stories of our native peoples, the rise of the city, and how our history as a colony shapes our society and politics even today. This Is My Country, What's Yours? is an impassioned literary travelogue and a vivid portrayal of our society, the work of Canadian authors, and the idea of writing itself. This Is My Country, What's Yours? is based on Noah Richler’s ten-part documentary of the same name originally broadcast on CBC Radio’s flagship Ideas program in spring 2005.
McClelland & Stewart 2007-05-29 496 pages

This Ragged Place Travels Across the Landscape

Terry Glavin
In this groundbreaking portrait of the uneasy state of the province, Terry Glavin's lyrical narratives reveal the fibre of a British Columbia rarely glimpsed. With journalistic acumen, he surveys a landscape of inexorable suburban sprawl, dismantled railway lines, scapegoating of Native fisheries, and strange goings-on at Gustafsen Lake. A new breed of travelogue, This Ragged Place will leave the taste of oolichan grease on your lips and the seeds of a transcendent new British Columbian mythology in your mind. This Ragged Place earned Glavin a Governor General's Award finalist distinction in 1997.
New Star Books 1996 203 pages

When the Gods Changed The Death of Liberal Canada

Peter C. Newman
The May 2, 2011 federal election turned Canadian governance upside down and inside out. In his newest and possibly most controversial book, Peter C. Newman argues that the Harper majority will alter Canada so much that we may have to change the country's name. But the most lasting impact of the Tory win, he writes, will be the demise of the Liberal Party, which ruled Canada for seven of the last ten decades and made the country what it is. Newman chronicles, in bloody detail, the deconstruction of the Grits' once unassailable fortress and anatomizes the ways in which the arrogance embedded in the Liberal genetic code slowly poisoned their former progressive impulses. When the Gods Changed is the saga of a political self-immolation unequalled in Canadian history. It took Michael Ignatieff to light the match.
National Geographic Books 2012-09-25 320 pages

Canada Made Me

Norman Levine
Norman Levine's Canada Made Me , first published in England in 1958, is a bitter, critical reassessment of the moral and cultural values of Canada. His account of his three-month journey from Halifax to Ucluelet, a fishing village on the west coast, is an unconventional portrait of Canada's underbelly. The book ends with the words: `I wondered why I felt so bitter about Canada. After all, it was all part of a dream, an experiment that could not come off. It was foolish to believe that you can take the throwouts, the rejects, the human kickabouts from Europe and tell them: Here you have a second chance. Here you can start a new life. But no one ever mentioned the price one had to pay; how much of oneself you had to betray.' Canada Made Me was regarded as so controversial that it did not appear in a Canadian edition until 1979. Critical opinion, however, has slowly swung around to the point the book was recently described in the Globe and Mail as a `laconic classic'. For this new edition Norman Levine has written an introduction which traces the book's publishing history and reputation.
Porcupine's Quill 1993 299 pages

Canada's army: waging war and keeping the peace

Granatstein, J. L.
Masterfully written and passionately argued, Canada's Army: Waging War and Keeping the Peace traces the full three hundred-year history of the Canadian army, from its origins in New France, through the Conquest, the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, Confederation, militia reform, the South African War, the two world wars, the Korean War, and postwar peacekeeping and peacemaking. Covering the major conflicts in depth, and exploring battles, tactics, and weapons, J.L. Granatstein also offers a rich analysis of the political context for the battles and events that shaped our understanding of the nation's army, not least the fluctuations of Canadian defence spending and methods of raising military manpower. Granatstein pays particular homage to the foot soldier, interweaving personal anecdotes into the history. At once a vivid and impeccably researched history, this major work by one of Canada's leading historians is also a passionate argument for military professionalism, beginning with the recognition that the soldier belongs to a self-regulating and exclusive organization quite distinct from civil society but nevertheless responsible to civil authority. Canadian disinterest in defence was manifested in popular support for a volunteer (but always untrained) militia. It is the historical and continued opposition to a professional army, Granatstein argues, that contributed to the extensive loss of life in the First and Second World Wars. Canada has traditionally undervalued its army in times of peace, but has repeatedly committed its army to war and other military operations, expecting every citizen to be a superb soldier. And, while the army has been able to achieve in times of conflict the professionalism needed by a modern army, this has come only with time and at a high price in the lives of Canadian soldiers. At the start of the twenty-first century, after forty years of cutbacks in budgets and personnel, the Canadian army continues in the same long tradition of unpreparedness. Pointing to the inevitable continuation of armed conflict around the world, Canada's Army makes a compelling case for Canada's need for professional armed forces with a simple but incontrovertible truth: "the equation is and has always been very simple: you pay now in dollars for competent soldiers or you pay later in dollars and your sons and daughters."
University of Toronto Press 2002 519 pages

The Kwakiutl of Vancouver Island

Franz Boas
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
Creative Media Partners, LLC 2022-10-27 282 pages

Seeking the fabled city: the Canadian Jewish experience

Levine, Allan Gerald
"In this definitive and meticulously researched account of the Jewish experience in Canada, award-winning and critically acclaimed author Allan Levine documents a story that is rich, accessible, often surprising, and epic in its scope. Relying on an abundance of primary sources and first-hand documentation and interviews, Seeking the Fabled City chronicles the successes and failures, the obstacles overcome and those not conquered, of a historic journey and the people who travelled it. Seeking the Fabled City is a story that unfolds over 250 years--from the decade after the conquest of New France in 1759, when small numbers of Sephardic Jews of Spanish and Portuguese descent arrived in British North America, through the great wave of Russian and Eastern European Jewish immigration at the turn of the twentieth century, to the present, in which Canada's large Jewish community, no longer hindered by the anti-Semitism of the past, is free to flourish. This is a chronicle of a people that takes place at hundreds of locales across the country--mainly in the large urban centres of Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, and Winnipeg, but also in west coast and maritime villages and tiny prairie towns--in a riveting drama with a cast of thousands."--
McClelland & Stewart 2018-10-30 484 pages

Rekindling the torch: the story of Canadian Zionism

Azrieli, David J.
Rekindling the Torch: The Story of Canadian Zionism begins with the long and troubled history of the Jewish people that informed the nineteenth-century idea of Zionism: the search for a homeland. After surviving anti-Semitic laws and pogroms, Jewish refugees faced not only the ultimate crime against humanity, but also the shocking indifference of the West when they were turned back from safe havens. Far from weakening the spirit, these combined tragedies strengthened their collective will. In Canada, Jewish immigrants created communities, pooled their resources, and rose to become captains of industry, among them the Bronfmans, the Batshaws, and the Hayes. They organized and actively pursued the goals of nationhood in Palestine. Richly illustrated and extensively researched, Rekindling the Torch celebrates the struggle of the Canadian Jewish people and their contributions to the state of Israel.
Key Porter Books 2008 272 pages

Canada's army: waging war and keeping the peace

Granatstein, J. L.
"Originally published in 2002, Canada's Army quickly became the definitive history of the Canadian military. In the twenty intervening years, we have seen major changes to how Canadians think about their military, and in the ways Canadians fight, train, and serve their nation in peace and in war. Written by J.L. Granatstein, one of the country's leading political and military historians, Canada's Army traces the full three-hundred-year history of the Canadian military. This thoroughly revised third edition brings Granatstein's work up to date with fresh material and new scholarship on the evolving role of the military in Canadian society, along with updated sources, maps, and illustrations. It explores the military from its origins in New France to the Conquest, the Revolutionary War, and the War of 1812; from South Africa and the two World Wars to the Korean War and contemporary peacekeeping efforts. The third edition includes new coverage of the War in Afghanistan; NATO deployments to Poland, Latvia, and Iraq; aid to the civil power deployments; and the role of the army reserve. Granatstein points to the inevitable continuation of armed conflict around the world and makes a compelling case for Canada to maintain properly equipped and professional armed forces. Masterfully written and passionately argued, Canada's Army offers a rich analysis of the political context for the battles and events that shape our understanding of the Canadian military."--
University of Toronto Press 2021 580 pages

King William Lyon Mackenzie King: a Life Guided by the Hand of Destiny

Allan Levine
The first biography in a generation of Canada's most eccentric and most important prime minister -- Mackenzie King -- and his defining influence on our 20th century. Most Canadian historians consider William Lyon Mackenzie King to be not only the country's greatest prime minister but also its most peculiar. From 1919 to 1948 he occasionally lorded over the Liberal Party, also serving as prime minister for much of that time. Mackenzie King was a brilliant tactician, was passionately committed to Canadian unity, and was a protector of the underdog, introducing such cornerstones of Canada's social safety net as unemployment insurance, family allowances and old-age pensions. At the same time, he was insecure, craved flattery, became upset at minor criticism, and was prone to fantasy -- especially about the Tory conspiracy against him. King loosened the Imperial connection with Britain and was wary of American military and economic power. Yet he loved all things British and acted like a praised schoolboy when British Prime Minister Winston Churchill or U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt treated him as an equal. King comes at a time when the Canadian people have resoundingly rebuffed the Liberal party under Michael Ignatieff; while the party's future remains uncertain, this definitive biography sheds light on its history under its greatest leader. This first major biography of Mackenzie King in 30 years mines the pages of his remarkable diary. At 30,000 pages, King is one of the most significant and revealing political documents in Canada's history and a guide to the deep and often moving inner conflicts that haunted Mackenzie King. With animated prose and a subtle wit, Allan Levine draws a multidimensional portrait of this most compelling of politicians.
Douglas and McIntyre (2013) Limited 2013-03-12 515 pages