Welcome back to our monthly series, “Upcoming Publications in Canadian History,” where I’ve compiled information on all the upcoming releases for the following month in the field of Canadian history from every Canadian academic press, all in one place. This includes releases in both English and French. To see June’ releases, click here.
***Please note that the cover images and book blurbs are used with permission from the publishers.***
N.B. This list only includes new releases, not rereleases in different formats.
July 10
Chandrima Chakraborty, Amber Dean, and Angela Failler, eds., Remembering Air Indian: The art of Public Mourning (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2017)
On June 23, 1985, the bombing of Air India Flight 182 killed 329 people, most of them Canadians. Today this pivotal event in Canada’s history is hazily remembered, yet certain interests have shaped how the tragedy is woven into public memory, and even exploited to advance a pernicious national narrative. Remembering Air India insists that we “remember Air India otherwise.” This collection investigates the Air India bombing and its implications for current debates about racism, terrorism, and citizenship. Drawing together academic analysis, testimony, visual arts, and creative writing, this innovative volume tenders a new public record of the bombing, one that shows how important creative responses are for deepening our understanding of the event and its aftermath.
Formats available: Paperback
Publisher’s link: http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/titles/878-9781772122596-remembering-air-india
Buy it on Amazon.ca: https://www.amazon.ca/Remembering-Air-India-Public-Mourning/dp/1772122599/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1498022562&sr=1-8
July 31
John H. Brumley, Lookout Cave: The Archaeology of Perishable Remains on the Northern Plains, (Athabasca: AU Press, 2017).
In the mid-1960s as a young high school student John Brumley visited Lookout Cave for the first time and knew immediately that the site was exceptional. The cave, located in north central Montana, was initially discovered in 1920 but it wasn’t until 1969 that a field crew from the University of Montana excavated a large portion of the remote site. The materials recovered in that excavation resulted in a substantial collection of more than one thousand items of normally perishable wood, feathers, and sinew. The material was stored in cardboard boxes and paper field collection bags until the year 2000 when Brumley turned his attention to Lookout Cave once again to provides an analysis of the lithic, faunal, and organic material collected from this unique site.
In the absence of moisture and direct sunlight, the interior of the cave created excellent conditions for preservation. This fully illustrated volume features these artifacts and sheds new light on Plains culture and the centuries old use of this well-hidden space.
Formats available: Paperback, PDF, Epub
Publisher’s link: http://www.aupress.ca/index.php/books/120270
Better Late Than Never
January 2017
Not Fit to Stay: Public Health Panics and South Asian Exclusion (Vancouver, UBC Press, 2017).
In the early 1900s, panic over the arrival of South Asian immigrants swept up and down the West Coast of North America. While racism and fear of labour competition were at the heart of this furor, Not Fit to Stay: Public Health Panics and South Asian Exclusion reveals that public leaders — including physicians, union leaders, civil servants, journalists, and politicians — latched onto unsubstantiated public health concerns to justify the exclusion of South Asians from Canada and the United States.
Formats available: Hardcover, Paperback
Publisher’s link: http://www.ubcpress.ca/search/title_book.asp?BookID=299175199
Buy it on Amazon.ca: https://www.amazon.ca/Not-Fit-Stay-Public-Exclusion/dp/0774832193/ref=sr_1_32?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1498023147&sr=1-32
April 7, 2017
Philip Gordon Mackintosh, Newspaper City: Toronto’s Street Surface and the Liberal Press, 1860-1935, (Toronto: UTP, 2017).
In Newspaper City, Phillip Gordon Mackintosh scrutinizes the reluctance of early Torontonians to pave their streets. He demonstrates how Toronto’s two liberal newspapers, the Toronto Globe and Toronto Daily Star, nevertheless campaigned for surface infrastructure as the leading expression of modern urbanity, despite the broad resistance of property owners to pay for infrastructure improvements under local improvements by-laws. To boost paving, newspapers used their broadsheets to fashion two imagined cities for their readers: one overrun with animals, dirt, and marginal people, the other civilized, modern, and crowned with clean streets. However, the employment of capitalism to generate traditional public goods, such as concrete sidewalks, asphalt roads, regulated pedestrianism, and efficient automobilism, is complicated. Thus, the liberal newspapers’ promotion of a city of orderly infrastructure and contented people in actual Toronto proved strikingly illiberal. Consequently, Mackintosh’s study reveals the contradictory nature of newspapers and the historiographical complexities of newspaper research.
Formats available: Hardcover, E-Book
Publisher’s link: http://www.utppublishing.com/Newspaper-City-Toronto-s-Street-Surfaces-and-the-Liberal-Press-1860-1935.html
June 23, 2017
Timothy J. Stewart, Toronto’s Fighting 75th in the Great War: A Prehistory of the Toronto Scottish Regiment (Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother’s Own), (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2017).
Hospital ships filled the harbour of Le Havre as the 75th Mississauga Battalion arrived on 13 August 1916. Those soldiers who survived would spend almost three years in a tiny corner of northeastern France and northwestern Belgium (Flanders), where many of their comrades still lie. And they would serve in many of the most horrific battles of that long, bloody conflict―Saint Eloi, the Somme, Arras, Vimy, Hill 70, Lens, Passchendaele, Amiens, Drocourt-Quéant, Canal du Nord, Cambrai, and Valenciennes.
This book tells the story of the 75th Battalion (later the Toronto Scottish Regiment) and the five thousand men who formed it―most from Toronto―from all walks of life. They included professionals, university graduates, white- and blue-collar workers, labourers, and the unemployed, some illiterate. They left a comfortable existence in the prosperous, strongly pro-British provincial capital for life in the trenches of France and Flanders. Tommy Church, mayor of Toronto from 1915 to 1921, sought to include his city’s name in the unit’s name because of the many city officials and local residents who served in it. Three years later Church accepted the 75th’s now heavily emblazoned colours for safekeeping at City Hall from Lieutenant-Colonel Colin Harbottle, who returned with his bloodied but successful survivors. The author pulls no punches in recounting their labours, triumphs, and travails.
Timothy J. Stewart undertook exhaustive research for this first-ever history of the 75th, drawing from archival sources (focusing on critical decisions by Brigadier Victor Oldum, General Officer Commanding 11th Brigade), diaries, letters, newspaper accounts, and interviews.
Formats available: Hardcover
Publisher’s link: https://www.wlupress.wlu.ca/Books/T/Toronto-s-Fighting-75th-in-the-Great-War
Buy it on Amazon.ca: https://www.amazon.ca/Torontos-Fighting-75th-Great-War/dp/1771121823/ref=sr_1_11?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1498024832&sr=1-11
That’s all for this month! Are there any books in particular that you are looking forward to? Did I miss anything? Let me know in the comments below! And don’t forget to check back on Sunday for our regular Canadian history roundup! See you then!
I don’t know if this qualifies as a history publication in that sense, but there is a new book out for Canada 150 by a renowned antique dealer from Quebec, and it is the history of Canada through the stories of objects and their artists. Available everywhere in both English and French
https://www.dundurn.com/books/Celebrating-Canada
Thanks for the link! I did come across this book, but I usually limit the Upcoming Publications list to scholarly publications, since I can’t speak to the accuracy of non-scholarly books. But I would highly recommend the work of Charlotte Gray if you are interested in the material history of Canada, especially her book, The Museum Called Canada.