21 results for "World History"

Ticket to ride: inside the Beatles' 1964 tour that changed the world

Kane, Larry
INCLUDES DOWNLOADABLE ORIGINAL AUDIO INTERVIEWS WITH THE AUTHOR AND THE BEATLES IN 1964 In 1964-1965, Larry Kane was the only American reporter, broadcast or newspaper, to travel with the Fab Four on every stop of their North American tour. In Ticket to Ride , Kane tells the story of what it was like to literally live with the four young men who would leave an indelible mark on contemporary music. Weaving in the voices of the Beatles themselves and covering the electrifying action of the road-the performances, the mischief, and all the players who cropped up along the way during those key years that catapulted the Beatles to major success – Ticket to Ride is unlike any other book on the Beatles. The story is told from the perspective of a seasoned journalist, who at the time of the tour was just coming into his own in a nation that was bracing for the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement, and a radical shift in rock-and-roll music. Twenty-one and eager to cover “big news ” Kane unknowingly was in the process of covering one of the biggest music events in history. Ticket to Ride is an inside account of these exciting years during the career of the band that redefined rock and roll. A must-have for Beatles fans, this paperback edition includes a foreword by the legendary Dick Clark, a CD of bonus interview material, rare photographs, and an appendix detailing tour schedules.
Backbeat 2014-08 272 pages

None Is Too Many Canada and the Jews of Europe, 1933-1948

Irving Abella,Harold Troper
Winner of the National Jewish Book Award (Holocaust Category) Winner of the Canadian Historical Association John A. Macdonald Prize Featured in The Literary Review of Canada 100: Canada's Most Important Books [This] is a story best summed up in the words of an anonymous senior Canadian official who, in the midst of a rambling, off-the-record discussion with journalists in 1945, was asked how many Jews would be allowed into Canada after the war ... 'None,' he said, 'is too many.' From the Preface One of the most significant studies of Canadian history ever written, None Is Too Many conclusively lays to rest the comfortable notion that Canada has always been an accepting and welcoming society. Detailing the country's refusal to offer aid, let alone sanctuary, to Jews fleeing Nazi persecution between 1933 and 1948, it is an immensely bleak and discomfiting story - and one that was largely unknown before the book's publication. Irving Abella and Harold Troper's retelling of this episode is a harrowing read not easily forgotten: its power is such that, 'a manuscript copy helped convince Ron Atkey, Minister of Employment and Immigration in Joe Clark's government, to grant 50,000 "boat people" asylum in Canada in 1979, during the Southeast Asian refugee crisis' (Robin Roger, The Literary Review of Canada). None Is Too Many will undoubtedly continue to serve as a potent reminder of the fragility of tolerance, even in a country where it is held as one of our highest values.
University of Toronto Press 2017-05-24 384 pages

The art of diplomacy: strengthening the Canada-U.S. relationship in times of uncertainty

Heyman, Bruce,Heyman, Vicki
A personal and insightful call to action and a much-needed book about one of the most important bilateral relationships in the world—the relationship between Canada and the US—and why diplomacy matters now more than ever before. All over the world, diplomacy is under threat. Diplomats used to handle sensitive international negotiations, but increasingly, incendiary Tweets and bombastic public statements are posing a threat to foreign relations. In The Art of Diplomacy , the former US ambassador to Canada, Bruce Heyman, and his partner, Vicki Heyman, spell out why diplomacy and diplomats matter, especially in today’s turbulent times. This dynamic power couple arrived in Canada intent on representing American interests, but they quickly learned that to do so meant representing the shared interests of all citizens—no matter what side of the 49th parallel they happened to live on. Bruce and Vicki narrate their three years in Canada spent journeying across the country and meeting Canadians from all walks of life—including Supreme Court justices, prime ministers, fishermen, farmers, artists, and entrepreneurs. They tell the behind-the-scenes stories of how their team helped bring Obama to Canada and Trudeau to the US. They also reveal the importance of creating cultural and artistic exchange between Canada and the US, of promoting economic and trade interests, and overall, of making a lasting positive impact on one of the most important relationships in the free world today. This politically poignant and heartfelt memoir is a call to action, a reminder that only by working together to protect our shared values—the environment, social justice and human rights—can nations build a better world for all. As their long-time friend and colleague President Obama once said, “The world needs more Canada.” At this key moment in history, when opposing nationalist and populist agendas threaten to divide us, The Art of Diplomacy reminds us to keep calm, to work together and to carry on.
Simon & Schuster 2019-04-30 267 pages

The Border Canada, the US and Dispatches From the 49th Parallel

James Laxer
Insightful, prescient and often funny, The Border explores what it means to be Canadian and what Canada means to the giant to our south. If good fences make good neighbours, do we have the sort of fence that will allow us to maintain neighbourly relations with the world’s only superpower? In The Border , well-known political scientist and journalist James Laxer explores this question by taking the reader on a compelling 5000-mile journey into culture, politics, history, and the future of Canadian sovereignty. Long ignored (or celebrated) as “the world’s longest undefended border,” the line between us and the US is now a stress point. The attacks on the World Trade Center announced to the world that North America is no longer a quiet neighbourhood and made our relationship with the US one of the most pressing questions facing Canadians. The porousness of the border is sure to be more problematic as the world becomes more troubled. Canadian officials complain of American pornography, drugs, untaxed cigarettes and, especially, guns moving northwards. For their part, the FBI and US Customs Service blame Canada for the infiltration of Chinese gangs smuggling immigrants and, more urgently, third-world terrorist cells based north of the border. Drawing deeply from history and anecdote, Laxer shows that for all our neighbourly good will, the Canada-US border has been contentious since the American War of Independence. In the mid-1800s the Americans tried to seize the west coast up to the 54th parallel. On the other hand, until 1931 the Canadian Army’s “Defence Scheme Number One” was to launch a surprise attack on the US with Mexico and Japan as allies. But beyond the fraught politics of the border, Laxer discovers another legacy as well. Travelling the country from Campobello island in the east to Richmond BC in the west all the way up to the Alaska panhandle in the north, Laxer meets people who live within a stone’s throw of the foreigners on the other side, and who share with him tales of friendship and rivalry, smuggling and trade that have shaped the character of their communities.
National Geographic Books 2004-09-21 400 pages

Staking Claims to a Continent: John A. Macdonald, Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, and the making of North America

Laxer, James
"Three political leaders presided over the reshaping of the North American continent during the fiery 1860s. Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln were both born in Kentucky, Davis in June 1808 and Lincoln the following February. John A. Macdonald was born in Glasgow, Scotland, in January 1815. All were Protestants; none came from a wealthy family. In an earlier era, such men would not have risen to political heights. They personified an age of social and economic transformation, thrust to the top by the very forces that tore the continent apart. Davis tried to create a country by ripping the South out of the United States and establishing the Confederate States of America. Lincoln's crusade to save the Union honed the industrial-military power that would one day dominate the world. Macdonald led the drive to shepherd the diverse British North American provinces into a federal state that would secure the northern half of the continent and keep Canada out of American hands. In a high stakes game, these three national projects competed to create viable nation states. And the success or failure of the projects would have consequences--not only for the long-term future of the continent but for the entire global order."--
Anansi 2016 361 pages

The Acadians In Search of a Homeland

James Laxer
An evocative and beautifully written history of some of Canada's earliest settlers, and their search for a definitive home. In 1604, a small group of migrants fled political turmoil and famine in France to start a new colony on Canada's east coast. Their roughly demarcated territory included what are now Canada's Maritime provinces, land that was fought over by the British and French empires until the Acadians were finally expelled in 1755. Their diaspora persists to this day. The Acadians is the definitive history of a little-known part of the North American past, and the quintessential story of a people in search of their identity. In the absence of a state, what defines an Acadian is elusive and while today's Acadian community centred in New Brunswick is more confident than ever, it is entering a contentious debate about its future. James Laxer's compelling book brilliantly explores one of Canada's oldest and most distinct cultural groups, and shows how their complex, often tragic history reflects the larger problems facing Canada and the world today.
Anchor Canada 2007-06-12 336 pages

The Unfinished Canadian The People We Are

Andrew Cohen
The award-winning, bestselling author of While Canada Slept gives his view of a country wasted on Canadians. What is national character? What makes the Americans, the British, the French, the Russians, and the Chinese who they are? In this homogenized world, where globalization is a byword for a deadening sameness, why do peoples who live in the same region, use the same money, read the same books, and watch the same movies remain different from one another? As much as Canada may be seen as a copy, clone, or colony of America, we are unquestionably distinctive. It is a result of our geography, history, and politics. It comes from our demography and prosperity. Most of all, it comes from our character. In The Unfinished Canadian , Andrew Cohen delves into our past and present in search of our defining national characteristics. He questions hoary shibboleths, soothing mythologies, and old saws with irreverence, humour, and flintiness, unencumbered by our proverbial politeness (itself a great misperception) and our suffocating political correctness. We are so much, in so many shades, and it’s time we took an honest look at ourselves. In this provocative, passionate, and elegant book, Cohen argues that our mythology, our jealousy, our complacency, our apathy, our amnesia, and our moderation are all part of the unbearable lightness of being Canadian.
National Geographic Books 2008-11-04 280 pages

Who Killed Canadian History?

J. L. Granatstein
In the 1960s, A.B. Hodgetts in his groundbreaking What Culture? What Heritage? bemoaned the loss of our history. Some 30 years later, in this brilliant and impassioned new evaluation, J.L. Granatstein points to an even more appalling situation in both the educational system and in our daily lives. As he argues so articulately, Canada is one of the few nations in the Western world not to teach its history to its young people and to its new citizens. The result: a nation that does not understand and respect its own past. How bad is the situation? In a 1997 survey at York University's Glendon College, 66% of first-year students could not name a Canadian author, most could not name the first English- and French-speaking Prime Ministers, over 50% could not give the date of Confederation. In a Dominion Institute Poll of the same year, 77% were unaware that Remembrance Day commemorated the end of the First World War and only 10% could identify the Quiet Revolution. What is worse, when history is taught in our schools, it is too often processed through the filter of political correctness. Who is responsible for this unthinking conspiracy to eliminate our history? Granatstein lays the blame with a number of culprits: schools that are too busy teaching trendy subjects, and dealing with the needs of recent immigrants; universities where history has been reduced to a series of arcane subjects; ministries of education that have dropped Canadian history as a required course and approved dumbed-down textbooks; the federal government with its misguided multicultural policies; even the media, which should be above political pressures, too often uses history to search for villainy. Granatstein shows that other countries, much older than Canada, have understood how to treat history as a necessary and important condition of existence. He offers wise and reasoned solutions to a problem that undermines our sense of ourselves at a time when national understanding is essential. Parents who want their children well-educated, educators who face difficult decisions, policy makers who balance many needs and all those who care about their country must read this book.
HarperPerennial 1999 156 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

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

10 days that shaped modern Canada

Hughes, Aaron W.
"What events, issues, and personalities have shaped modern Canada? Which days stand out in the timeline of our country? Revisiting ten notable days from recent history, Aaron W. Hughes invites readers to think about the tensions, achievements, and people that make Canada distinctive. These indelible dates interweave to offer an account of the political, social, cultural, and demographic forces that have shaped the modern nation. Diverse episodes include the enactment of the War Measures Act, hockey's Summit Series, the patriation of the Constitution, the Multiculturalism Act, the École Polytechnique Massacre, victories for gay rights, Quebec's second referendum on secession, The Tragically Hip's farewell concert, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and ongoing Black equality struggles. Each day represents a window on contemporary Canada, jumpstarting reflection and conversation about who we are as a nation and how we got here. Ten Days That Shaped Modern Canada is the perfect guide for all those curious about the forces that shape our country and about how we understand our place in the world."--
University of Alberta Press 2022-09 260 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

The Ottawa Men The Civil Service Mandarins, 1935-1957

J. L. Granatstein
A lively and comprehensive study of the creation of the Canadian civil service by one of Canada's finest historians ... Granatstein's classic book remains the only comprehensive account of the formative years of the federal civil service. Drawing on extensive archival research and in-depth interviews with the surviving "Ottawa men" and their colleagues, Granatstein shows how a small group of individuals, including men such as Lester Pearson, who went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize and become Prime Minister of Canada, worked to create what many observers acknowledged as the most effective public service in the Western world, leading Canada through the Great Depression and World War Two to full nationhood and a major role after the war as the world's leading "middle power." This re-issue includes a new introduction by the author that surveys research since the book was originally published, as well as a new portfolio of photographs.Extensive notes, a bibliographical essay dealing with primary sources, and a full index make the book a useful reference. Where necessary, corrections have been made to the text of the original edition.
Rock's Mills Press 2015 326 pages

A.M. Klein, the father of Canadian Jewish literature: essays in the poetics of humanistic passion

Brenner, Rachel Feldhay
Analyzes the works of Canadian Jewish poet A.M. Klein (1909-1972) written in the late 1920s-early 1950s, reading them as a combative poetic response to history. Klein's early poetry in "Hath Not a Jew, " composed against the background of the rise of antisemitism in Europe and in Montreal, his hometown, reveals his deep identification with Jewish tradition and his disillusionment with the humanist inability to confront Nazism. Deeply affected by news of the Holocaust, he wrote his mock epic "The Hitleriad" in 1942, in which he presented Hitler's ugliness, mediocrity, and meanness of spirit. This seems an attempt to demystify Hitler, paralleled perhaps by Arendt's concept of the banality of evil. "The Rocking Chair, " a collection of poems, and the novel "The Second Scroll" represent Klein's attempt to come to terms with the post-Holocaust world. Ch. 4 (pp. 61-80), "The Hitleriad: Against the Silence of the Apocalypse, " appeared in "Studies in American Jewish Literature" 9 (1990).
E. Mellen Press 1990 144 pages

The gate of heaven: the story of Congregation Shaar Hashomayim of Montreal, 1846-1996

Shuchat, Wilfred.
Rabbi Shuchat tells of the emergence of Shaar Hashomayim as a congregation separate from the Spanish and Portuguese fold, the generation-long tension between the two congregations, and the rebellion that produced the Temple Emanuel. He describes the role of the Canadian government in the ups and downs of Jewish immigration and details the effects of world-wide anti-Semitism on the local community, as well as the struggle for Jewish educational rights that ultimately produced a real public school system in the province of Quebec. The student protest that almost paralysed the Passover festival and the day school crisis that almost split the congregation are recounted in detail, and the Pavilion of Judaism at Expo '67 is described. Weaving together individual stories and the history of the Shaar, Rabbi Shuchat demonstrates how the turbulence of the nineteenth century produced a twentieth-century Shaar and Montreal Jewish community that are second to none in tolerance and creativity.
McGill-Queen's University Press 2000-09-15 480 pages