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 the releases from last month, 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.
October 5
Céline Gendron, Le papier voyageur. Provenance, circulation et utilisation en Nouvelle-France au XVIIe siècle (Québec: Presses Université Laval, 2018)
Sous l’Ancien Régime, l’administration coloniale, l’Église et le commerce ont produit une masse considérable de documents de toutes sortes : la Nouvelle-France n’y a pas fait exception. Puisque la colonie n’avait aucun moulin producteur de papier, il a bien fallu importer ce support nécessaire aux écritures. Trois questions découlent de ce constat : d’où provient le papier utilisé en si grande abondance ? Quelles sont les circonstances de l’importation du papier, les sources d’approvisionnement en papier et les voies empruntées pour son transport ? Qui sont les utilisateurs du papier et à quelles fins en font-ils usage ?
L’étude des caractéristiques du papier d’écriture à partir de feuillets originaux du XVIIe siècle provenant des centres d’archives publics et privés au Québec et au Canada permet de déterminer la provenance de ce papier et, de là, les mouvements de sa circulation entre la France et la Nouvelle-France. L’étude positionne aussi les circuits d’approvisionnement qui ont facilité son arrivée dans la vallée du Saint-Laurent. Trois aspects interreliés au papier d’écriture sont également mis en évidence, à savoir les usages auxquels il est destiné, les usagers qui le consomment ainsi que les diverses catégories de documents qui naissent de son utilisation.
Available Formats: Paperback
Publisher’s Link: https://www.pulaval.com/produit/le-papier-voyageur-provenance-circulation-et-utilisation-en-nouvelle-france-au-xviie-siecle
Buy it from Amazon.ca: https://www.amazon.ca/papier-voyageur-Provenance-circulation-utilisation/dp/2763739482/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1539884810&sr=8-1&keywords=Le+papier+voyageur
October 16
Michael Poplyansky, Le Parti acadien et la quête d’un paradis perdu (Québec: Septentrion 2018)
Au cours des siècles, l’identité acadienne a subi maintes redéfinitions, mais peu de périodes historiques en ont connu de plus grandes que celle de 1968 à 1982. Un nouveau mode de pensée, le néo-nationalisme, élaboré à l’origine par des intellectuels du Québec, prend racine au Nouveau-Brunswick. Ce mouvement vise la prise en charge des structures gouvernementales par les Acadiens.
Jetant un nouveau regard sur le Parti acadien, parti politique aujourd’hui largement oublié, mais jadis fort influent, Michael Poplyansky le situe par rapport à une vague autonomiste qui se fait sentir à travers le monde occidental dans les années 1970 et 1980. Il cherche à déterminer dans quelle mesure l’expérience du Parti acadien correspond à ce qui s’est vécu ailleurs et jusqu’à quel point le contexte néo-brunswickois est réellement unique.
Available Formats: Paperback, ePub, PDF
Publisher’s Link: https://www.septentrion.qc.ca/catalogue/parti-acadien-et-la-quete-d-un-paradis-perdu-le
Buy it from Amazon.ca: https://www.amazon.ca/Parti-acadien-qu%C3%AAte-paradis-French-ebook/dp/B07J1W6JRZ/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1539885152&sr=1-1&keywords=parti+acadien
October 28
Lysandre St-Pierre, La Formation d’une culture élitaire dans une ville en essor: Joliette, 1860-1910 (Québec: Septentrion 2018)
«Fais donc comme font les autres.» Le député fédéral et éminent citoyen de Joliette, Georges Baby, l’implore à son frère cadet en 1871. C’était le code de conduite d’une bourgeoisie naissante durant la deuxième moitié du XIXe siècle. Quiconque veut être considéré comme faisant partie de l’élite, et ainsi contrôler ce centre industriel régional, ne peut déroger d’un ensemble de normes établies. La formation d’une culture propre aux industriels, aux notables, aux marchands et à leurs épouses favorise non seulement leur positionnement au sommet de la pyramide sociale, mais leur donne aussi la légitimité de construire la ville à leur image.
Lysandre St-Pierre vous convie à entrer dans les espaces qu’ils occupent et façonnent au quotidien: le collège classique, l’institut littéraire, les parcs publics, les résidences familiales. Vous pourrez ainsi jeter un coup d’oeil privilégié sur un processus qui représente le travail d’une vie et qui se poursuit même après la mort: la distinction sociale.
Available Formats: Paperback, ePub
Publisher’s Link: https://www.septentrion.qc.ca/catalogue/formation-d-une-culture-elitaire-dans-une-ville-en-essor-la
Buy it from Amazon.ca: https://www.amazon.ca/Formation-culture-%C3%A9litaire-ville-essor-ebook/dp/B07JFZMWS6/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1539885489&sr=1-1&keywords=Formation+d%27une+culture+%C3%A9litaire
October 29
Peter K. Andersson, Silent History: Body Language and Nonverbal Identity, 1860-1914 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2018)
The written and verbal traces of the past have been extensively studied by historians, but what about the nonverbal traces? In recent years, historians have expanded their attention to other kinds of sources, but seldom have they taken into account the most vital and omnipresent nonverbal aspect of life – body language. Silent History explores the potential of early photography to uncover the structure and nature of everyday body language in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Through a close study of street photography by pioneering photographers who were the first to document urban everyday life with hidden cameras, Peter Andersson examines a key period of history in a new light. By focusing on a number of body poses and gestures common to the nonverbal communication of the fin de siècle, he reveals the identifications and connotations of daily social interaction beyond the written word. Andersson also depicts a broader picture of the body and its relationship to popular culture by placing photographic analysis within a context of magazine illustration, caricature, music-hall entertainment, and the elusive urban subcultures of the day.
Studying archival photographs from Austria, England, and Sweden, Silent History provides a clear picture of the emergence of the modern bodily conventions that still define us.
Available Formats: Hardcover, ePub
Publisher’s Link: http://www.mqup.ca/silent-history-products-9780773554757.php?page_id=73&
Buy it from Amazon.ca: https://www.amazon.ca/Silent-History-Language-Nonverbal-1860-1914/dp/0773554750/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1537454414&sr=1-2&keywords=silent+history
October 30
Roderick J. Barman, ed. Safe Haven: The Wartime Letters of Ben Barman and Margaret Penrose, 1940-1943 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2018)
In 1940, when Hitler’s tanks reached the English Channel and German bombs fell on London, the invasion of the United Kingdom seemed imminent. Among the many thousands of British children finding a safe haven during the war, Benjamin Barman was sent by his parents to stay with the Penrose family in London, Ontario.
Along with Margaret Penrose, a childhood friend of his mother, Ben wrote letters to his family from 1940 until his return to England late in 1943. Transcribed and illustrated with contemporary photographs, this correspondence provides graphic insight into the trauma faced by a child refugee as he struggled to adapt to a completely new life and society far from his family. Captivating and instructive, the letters, along with detailed reports provided to Ben’s parents by his host mother, speak to Canadians’ unflinching support of the British despite the many deprivations and difficulties that the war inflicted on them.
Introduced and extensively annotated by Ben’s youngest brother, Roderick, a professional historian, Safe Haven reveals the intimate day-to-day life of one Canadian household during the Second World War and the realities of evacuated British children, their families, and the people who hosted them.
Available Formats: Hardcover, ePub
Publisher’s Link: http://www.mqup.ca/safe-haven-products-9780773555051.php?page_id=73&
Buy it from Amazon.ca: https://www.amazon.ca/Safe-Haven-Wartime-Margaret-1940-1943/dp/0773555056/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1539874391&sr=1-1&keywords=safe+haven+wartime+letters
Joseph Alphonse Couture (Mourad Djebabla-Brun, ed) Du Saint-Laurent au Rhin: Carnets de guerre, 1914-1918 (Québec: Septentrion, 2018)
De Québec aux rives du Rhin, en Allemagne, Joseph Alphonse Couture, jeune enrôlé volontaire du 22e Bataillon, dresse un portrait complet, calepin et crayon à la main, de ce qu’a été l’expérience d’un soldat canadien de la Première Guerre mondiale. Dans ses journaux, il raconte avec beaucoup de détails son recrutement et sa formation au Canada, sa traversée de l’Atlantique, les années de souffrance au front et dans les tranchées, puis la joie de la fin de la guerre et la hâte du retour au Canada et à la vie civile.
«Nous sommes tous à bord depuis quelques instants et nous devons partir à 5 heures pm. Beaucoup de monde sur le quai pour nous dire un bon voyage […]. Que de pleurs, de scènes déchirantes à voir…»
L’exceptionnelle richesse de ce témoignage en fait un ouvrage de référence pour les lecteurs voulant découvrir la guerre de 1914-1918 par le vécu et les émotions d’un jeune combattant du Québec.
Available Formats: Paperback, ePub
Publisher’s Link: https://www.septentrion.qc.ca/catalogue/du-saint-laurent-au-rhin
Buy it from Amazon.ca: https://www.amazon.ca/Du-Saint-Laurent-Rhin-Carnets-1914-1918-ebook/dp/B07J1Y711P/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1539886523&sr=1-1&keywords=Du+Saint-Laurent+au+Rhin
November 1
L. Jane McMillan, Truth and Conviction: Donald Marshall Jr. and the Mi’kmaw Quest for Justice (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2018)
The name “Donald Marshall Jr.” is synonymous with “wrongful conviction” and the fight for Indigenous rights in Canada. In Truth and Conviction, Jane McMillan – Marshall’s former partner, an acclaimed anthropologist, and an original defendant in the Supreme Court’s Marshall decision on Indigenous fishing rights – tells the story of how Marshall’s fight against injustice permeated Canadian legal consciousness and revitalized Indigenous law.
Marshall was destined to assume the role of hereditary chief of Mi’kmaw Nation when, in 1971, at the age of seventeen, he was wrongly convicted of murder. He spent more than eleven years in jail before a royal commission exonerated him and exposed the entrenched racism underlying the terrible miscarriage of justice. Four years later, in 1993, he was charged with fishing eels without a licence. With the backing of Mi’kmaw chiefs and the Union of Nova Scotia Indians, he took the case all the way to the Supreme Court to vindicate Indigenous treaty rights in the landmark Marshall decision.
Marshall was only fifty-five when he died in 2009. His legacy lives on as Mi’kmaq continue to assert their rights and build justice programs grounded in customary laws and practices, key steps in the path to self-determination and reconciliation.
This book will appeal to anyone interested in the Donald Marshall story, Indigenous peoples encounters with the law, and social justice issues.
Available Formats: Hardcover
Publisher’s Link: https://www.ubcpress.ca/truth-and-conviction
Buy it from Amazon.ca: https://www.amazon.ca/Truth-Conviction-Donald-Marshall-Justice/dp/0774837489/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1539872612&sr=1-7
Miléna Santoro and Erick D. Langer, eds. Hemispheric Indigeneities: Native Identity and Agency in Mesoamerica, the Andes, and Canada (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2018)
Hemispheric Indigeneities is a critical anthology that brings together indigenous and nonindigenous scholars specializing in the Andes, Mesoamerica, and Canada. The overarching theme is the changing understanding of indigeneity from first contact to the contemporary period in three of the world’s major regions of indigenous peoples.
Although the terms indio, indigène, and indian only exist (in Spanish, French, and English, respectively) because of European conquest and colonization, indigenous peoples have appropriated or changed this terminology in ways that reflect their shifting self-identifications and aspirations. As the essays in this volume demonstrate, this process constantly transformed the relation of Native peoples in the Americas to other peoples and the state. This volume’s presentation of various factors—geographical, temporal, and cross-cultural—provide illuminating contributions to the burgeoning field of hemispheric indigenous studies.
Hemispheric Indigeneities explores indigenous agency and shows that what it means to be indigenous was and is mutable. It also demonstrates that self-identification evolves in response to the relationship between indigenous peoples and the state. The contributors analyze the conceptions of what indigeneity meant, means today, or could come to mean tomorrow.
Available Formats: Hardcover
Publisher’s Link: https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/university-of-nebraska-press/9781496206626/
Buy it from Amazon.ca: https://www.amazon.ca/Hemispheric-Indigeneities-Native-Identity-Mesoamerica-ebook/dp/B07C8CDSPT/ref=sr_1_27?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1539872901&sr=1-27
November 4
Craig Heron, Working Lives: Essays in Canadian Working-Class History (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018)
Craig Heron is one of Canada’s leading labour historians. Drawing together fifteen of Heron’s new and previously published essays on working-class life in Canada, Working Lives covers a wide range of issues, including politics, culture, gender, wage-earning, and union organization. A timely contribution to the evolving field of labour studies in Canada, this cohesive collection of essays analyzes the daily experiences of people working across Canada over more than two hundred years.
Honest in its depictions of the historical complexities of daily life, Working Lives raises issues in the writing of Canadian working-class history, especially “working-class realism” and how it is eventually inscribed into Canada’s public history. Thoughtfully reflecting on the ways in which workers interact with the past, Heron discusses the important role historians and museums play in remembering the adversity and milestones experienced by Canada’s working class.
Available Formats: Hardcover, Paperback, ePub
Publisher’s Link: https://utorontopress.com/ca/working-lives-2
Buy it from Amazon.ca: https://www.amazon.ca/Working-Lives-Canadian-Working-Class-History/dp/1487503253/ref=sr_1_9?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1529592889&sr=1-9&keywords=working+lives
November 14
L.M. Montgomery (ed. Benjamin Lefebvre) A Name for Herself: Selected Writings, 1891–1917 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018)
Years before she published her internationally celebrated first novel, Anne of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery (1874–1942) started contributing short works to periodicals across North America. While these works consisted primarily of poems and short stories, she also experimented with a wider range of forms, particularly during the early years of her career, at which point she tested out several authorial identities before settling on the professional moniker “L.M. Montgomery.”
A Name for Herself: Selected Writings, 1891–1917 is the first in a series of volumes collecting Montgomery’s extensive contributions to periodicals. Leading Montgomery scholar Benjamin Lefebvre discusses these so-called miscellaneous pieces in relation to the works of English-speaking women writers who preceded her and the strategies they used to succeed, including the decision to publish under gender-neutral signatures. Among the highlights of the volume are Montgomery’s contributions to student periodicals, a weekly newspaper column entitled “Around the Table,” a long-lost story narrated first by a woman trapped in an unhappy marriage and then by the man she wishes she had married instead, and a new edition of her 1917 celebrity memoir, “The Alpine Path.” Drawing fascinating links to Montgomery’s life writing, career, and fiction, this volume will offer scholars and readers alike an intriguing new look at the work of Canada’s most enduringly popular author.
Available Formats: Hardcover, Paperback, ePub
Publisher’s Link: https://utorontopress.com/ca/a-name-for-herself-2
Buy it from Amazon.ca: https://www.amazon.ca/Name-Herself-Selected-Writings-1891-1917/dp/1487523084/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1539876282&sr=8-1&keywords=A+Name+for+Herself%3A+Selected+Writings%2C+1891%E2%80%931917
November 15
Stephen Hardy & Andrew C. Holman, Hockey: A Global History (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2018)
Long considered Canadian, ice hockey is in truth a worldwide phenomenon–and has been for centuries. In Hockey: A Global History, Stephen Hardy and Andrew C. Holman draw on twenty-five years of research to present THE monumental end-to-end history of the sport.
Here is the story of on-ice stars and organizational visionaries, venues and classic games, the evolution of rules and advances in equipment, and the ascendance of corporations and instances of bureaucratic chicanery. Hardy and Holman chart modern hockey’s “birthing” in Montreal and follow its migration from Canada south to the United States and east to Europe. The story then shifts from the sport’s emergence as a nationalist battlefront to the movement of talent across international borders to the game of today, where men and women at all levels of play lace ’em up on the shinny ponds of Saskatchewan, the wide ice of the Olympics, and across the breadth of Asia.
Available Formats: Hardcover, Paperback
Publisher’s Link: https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/24qbh7by9780252042201.html
Buy it from Amazon.ca: https://www.amazon.ca/Hockey-Global-History-Hardy-Holman/dp/0252042204/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1539872612&sr=1-10
Guy St-Denis, The True Face of Sir Isaac Brock (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2018)
Major General Sir Isaac Brock is remembered as the Hero of Upper Canada for his defence of what is now Ontario during the War of 1812, and also for his noble death at the Battle of Queenston Heights. In the more than two centuries since then, Brock’s likeness has been lost in a confusing array of portraits—most of which are misidentified or conceptual.
The 1824 monument constructed to honour Brock’s sacrifice was destroyed in 1840 by Benjamin Lett, a disgruntled disciple of William Lyon Mackenzie and critic of the Upper Canadian elite. The replacement and subsequent commemorations emphasized a patriotic desire to visualize the hero’s appearance. But despite uncovering an authentic portrait painted only a few years before Brock’s death, a series of false faces were promoted to serve competing claims and agendas. St-Denis situates Brock’s portraits within an emerging English Canadian imperial nationalism that sought a heroic past which reflected their own aspirations and ambitions.
A work of detailed scholarship and a fascinating detective story, The True Face of Sir Isaac Brock details the sometimes petty world of self-proclaimed guardians of the past, the complex process of identification and misidentification that often occurs even at esteemed Canadian institutions, and St-Denis’ own meticulous work as he separates fact from fiction to finally reveal Brock’s true face.
Available Formats: Paperback, ePub, PDF
Publisher’s Link: https://press.ucalgary.ca/books/9781773850207
Buy it from Amazon.ca: https://www.amazon.ca/True-Face-Sir-Isaac-Brock/dp/1773850202/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1539872612&sr=1-3
Peter Price, Questions of Order: Confederation and the Making of Modern Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018)
What happened on July 1, 1867? Over 150 years after Canadian Confederation, it seems like a question with an obvious answer. Questions of Order argues that Confederation was not just a political deal struck by politicians in 1867, but was a process of reconfiguring political concepts and the basis of political association. Breaking new ground, Questions of Order argues that Confederation was an imperial event that generated new questions, concerns, and ideas about the future of political order in the British Empire and the world. It traces how for many public writers in English Canada, Confederation became an important basis for reimagining political order in the empire and redefining basic political concepts. To some, it marked a clear step in the larger project of imperial federation or even of the ultimate union of the English-speaking world. For others, however, it represented the certain fragmentation of the empire into sovereign “national” states.
Set in the context of a time of enormous social and cultural change, when so many long-held assumptions and firmly believed truths were faltering in the wave of new scientific and philosophical beliefs, the creation of Canada forced writers and public thinkers to grapple with the nature of political association and attempt to find new answers to critical questions of order.
Available Formats: Hardcover, Paperback, ePub
Publisher’s Link: https://utorontopress.com/ca/questions-of-order-2
Buy it from Amazon.ca: https://www.amazon.ca/Questions-Order-Confederation-Making-Modern/dp/1487522185/ref=sr_1_21?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1539872901&sr=1-21
Tyler Wentzell, Not for King or Country: Edward Cecil-Smith, the Communist Party of Canada, and the Spanish Civil War (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018)
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Not for King or Country tells the story of Edward Cecil-Smith, a dynamic propagandist for the Communist Party of Canada during the Great Depression. Born to missionary parents in China in 1903, Cecil-Smith came to Toronto in 1919 where he joined the Canadian militia and lived a happy life ensconced in the Protestant missionary community of Toronto. He became increasingly interested in radical politics during the 1920s, eventually joining the Communist Party in 1931. Worried by the growing strength of fascism around the world, particularly in China, Germany, Italy, and Spain during the summer of 1936, Cecil-Smith quietly departed Canada and became among the first volunteers to fight for the Republic in the Spanish Civil War. Cecil-Smith was motivated to fight not out of any sense of traditional patriotism (“for king or country”) but out of a sense that the onward march of fascism had to be stopped, and Spain was where the line had to be drawn.
Not for King or Country is the first biography of a Canadian volunteer in the Spanish Civil War, and is also the first book to critically analyse the major battles in which the Canadian and American volunteers fought. Drawing upon declassified RCMP files, records held in the Russian Archives in Moscow, audio recordings of the volunteers, a detailed survey of maps, and battle records, as well as and the Communist Party press, Not for King or Country breaks down the battles and the Party’s activities in a way that will be accessible to interested readers and scholars alike.
Available Formats: Hardcover, Paperback, ePub
Publisher’s Link: https://utorontopress.com/ca/not-for-king-or-country-2
Buy it from Amazon.ca: https://www.amazon.ca/Not-King-Country-Cecil-Smith-Communist/dp/1487522886/ref=sr_1_23?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1539872901&sr=1-23
Janice Cavell and Ryan Touhey, eds. Reassessing the Rogue Tory: Canadian Foreign Relations in the Diefenbaker Era (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2018)
The years when John Diefenbaker’s Progressive Conservatives were in office were among the most tumultuous in Canadian history. Variously branded as a populist, maverick, and “Rogue Tory,” Diefenbaker came to power on a surge of optimistic nationalism in 1957. By the time of his electoral defeat in 1963 he had stirred up more controversy than any previous prime minister. This was nowhere more apparent than in his handling of international affairs, particularly Canada’s relationship with the United States.
This book reassesses foreign policy in the Diefenbaker era to determine whether its failures can be mainly attributed to the prime minister’s personality traits, particularly his indecisiveness, or whether broader underlying shifts in world affairs were to blame. Written by leading scholars who mine new sources of archival research, the chapters examine the full range of international issues that confronted Diefenbaker and his ministers and probe the factors that led to success or failure, decision or indecision, on specific issues. The introduction and conclusion set these case studies in the broader context of world events during the 1950s and ’60s.
Together, the chapters in this book demonstrate that underlying structural changes were largely responsible for the extraordinary tumultuousness of the Diefenbaker era. Rather than dismissing him as a “Rogue Tory” on the world stage, this fascinating reconsideration of the Diefenbaker years challenges readers to push beyond the conventional and reassess his record with fresh eyes.
This book will appeal to students and scholars of Canadian politics, political history, and international relations as well as general readers interested in the Diefenbaker era of foreign policy.
Available Formats: Hardcover
Publisher’s Link: https://www.ubcpress.ca/reassessing-the-rogue-tory
November 22
Emmett Macfarlane, ed. Policy Change, Courts, and the Canadian Constitution (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018)
Policy Change, Courts, and the Canadian Constitution aims to further our understanding of judicial policy impact and the role of the courts in shaping policy change. Bringing together a group of political scientists and legal scholars, this volume delves into a diverse set of policy areas, including health care issues, the regulation of elections, criminal justice policy, minority language education, citizenship, refugee policy, human rights legislation, and Indigenous policy.
While much of the public law and judicial politics literatures focus on the impact of the constitution and the judicial role, scholarship on courts that makes policy change its central lens of analysis is surprisingly rare. Multidisciplinary in its approach to examining policy issues, this book focuses on specific cases or policy issues through a wide-ranging set of approaches, including the use of interview data, policy analysis, historical and interpretive analysis, and jurisprudential analysis.
Available Formats: Hardcover, Paperback, ePub
Publisher’s Link: https://utorontopress.com/ca/policy-change-courts-and-the-canadian-constitution-2
Buy it from Amazon.ca: https://www.amazon.ca/Policy-Change-Courts-Canadian-Constitution/dp/1487504128/ref=sr_1_25?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1539872901&sr=1-25
Stanley R. Barrett, The Lamb and the Tiger: From Peacekeepers to Peacewarriors in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press)
This book focuses on the broad implications of the transformation of Canada from a peacekeeping to a war-making nation during the Conservative Party’s recent decade in power. Funds were poured into the Canadian Forces, and a newly militarized nation found itself entrenched in conflicts around the globe. For decades, Canada had played a leading role in UN peacekeeping, and when the Cold War ended, the prospect of international harmony was infectious. Yet in short order hostilities erupted in the failed states of Rwanda, Somalia, and the Balkans; terrorism – including 9/11 – raised its head; and Iraq and Afghanistan became war zones. In the face of these immense challenges, the UN was dismissed by its opponents as irrelevant.
Structured around an anti-war perspective, The Lamb and the Tiger critically examines the ageless genetic and more recent cultural (civilizational) explanations of war, concluding with a close look at the impact of war and right-wing politics on women and Indigenous peoples. The Lamb and the Tiger encourages Canadians to think about what kind of military and what kind of country they really want.
Available Formats: Hardcover, Paperback, ePub
Publisher’s Link: https://utorontopress.com/ca/the-lamb-and-the-tiger-2
November 30
George Colpitts, Fish Wars and Trout Travesties: Saving Southern Alberta’s Coldwater Streams in the 1920s (Edmonston: Athabasca University Press, 2018)
Today, efforts at environmental protection commonly take the form of “top-down” measures, in which overarching plans, usually based on scientific reports, are implemented through environmental legislation, which is then enforced at the local level. Fish Wars and Trout Travesties offers an instructive glimpse into an earlier era, before the state assumed its present degree of regulatory control over the environment. In southern Alberta of the 1920s, townspeople and civic leaders took a spirited interest in the management of their local rivers and streams and often held strong opinions about which species of fish should be conserved and by what methods. Often these opinions reflected a growing division between the traditional, rural understanding of nature as the means to survival and an emerging urban conception of nature as recreational space. Such conflicting perspectives — founded as they were, on differing views about the relationship of human beings to the natural world — meant that local debates could be quite heated.
Whereas previous histories of conservation in the province have been told through the eyes of its institutions, such as the Alberta Fish and Game Association, Colpitts draws on rarely-consulted historical documents in an effort to tease out the “fault lines” within conservation practice. As he demonstrates, the move for conservation described in Fish Wars was largely a grassroots phenomenon, and the rules that the state subsequently formulated were often the result of pressures from below.
Available Formats: Paperback, ePub, PDF
Publisher’s Link: http://www.aupress.ca/index.php/books/120239
Buy it from Amazon.ca: https://www.amazon.ca/Fish-Wars-Trout-Travesties-Coldwater/dp/1927356717/ref=sr_1_20?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1539872901&sr=1-20
Nicole Neatby, From Old Quebec to La Belle Province: Tourism Promotion, Travel Writing, and National Identities, 1920-1967 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2018)
Tourism promoters strive to brand their destinations in anticipation of what they think travellers hope to experience. In turn, travel writers react in part to destinations in line with their expectations. While several scholars have documented such patterns elsewhere, these have remained understudied in the case of Quebec despite the frequency with which the province was branded and rebranded and its status as a major North American travel destination in the decades leading up to Expo 67.
The first comprehensive history of Quebec tourism promotion and travel writing, From Old Quebec to La Belle Province details changing marketing strategies and shows how these efforts consistently mirrored and strengthened French Quebec’s evolving national identity. Nicole Neatby also takes into account the contentious role of English-speaking promoters in Montreal, belying the view that Quebec was unvaryingly represented and appreciated for being “old.” Taking a comparative approach, Neatby draws on books and a wide array of newspapers, popular and specialized magazines, and written and visual sources from outside the tourist genre to reveal how the distinct national and cultural identities of English Canadians, Americans, and French Quebecers profoundly shaped their expectations and reactions to the province.
From Old Quebec to La Belle Province traces and explains shifting promotional priorities for tourism and travel writers’ varying reactions over the course of four decades, and how these attitudes harmonized with evolving national identities.
Available Formats: Hardcover, Paperback, ePub
Publisher’s Link: http://www.mqup.ca/from-old-quebec-to-la-belle-province-products-9780773554962.php#!prettyPhoto
Buy it from Amazon.ca: Link not available.
And, finally, a bit of shameless self-promotion to celebrate halloween, for an edition of my own I have coming out this fall…
Todd H.J. Pettigrew, Stephanie M. Pettigrew and Jacques A. Bailly, eds. The Major Works of John Cotta
The Short Discovery (1612) and The Trial of Witchcraft (1616). Leiden: Brill, 2018.
This volume presents, for the first, time, a critical edition of the works of the early modern English physician John Cotta. No mere country doctor, Cotta spoke out eloquently and courageously against what he saw as abuses in medicine and injustices in the prosecution of witchcraft. Read by important thinkers like Robert Burton in England, and by colonial administrators in New England, Cotta helped shape two of the most important debates of his time. Included are the full texts of Cotta’s Short Discovery and Trial of Witchcraft, both books painstakingly edited and annotated. Also included is a detailed introduction dealing with Cotta’s medical and religious contexts, his extensive learning and much more.
Available Formats: Hardcover, ePub
Publisher’s Link: https://brill.com/abstract/title/38087?rskey=DdNuyR&result=1
Buy it from Amazon.ca: https://www.amazon.ca/Major-Works-John-Cotta-Witchcraft/dp/9004367160/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1539886900&sr=1-1&keywords=the+major+works+of+john+cotta (or get your university library to order it cause $255 CDN is a lot of money)
That’s all for this month! I hope you enjoyed this blog post. If you did, please consider sharing it on the social media platform of your choice! 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 get to check back on Sunday for a brand new Canadian history roundup! See you then!
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