They Call Me George: The Untold Story of Black Train Porters and the Birth of Modern Canada by Cecil Foster Windsor, ON: Biblioasis, 2019 $22.95 / 9781771962612 Reviewed by John Douglas Belshaw * For Black History Month Canada (February 1- 20, 2020) we present John Belshaw’s review of Cecil Foster’s They Call Me George: The…
Read more #732 Race and rails
Surveying the 120th Meridian and the Great Divide: The Alberta-BC Boundary Survey, 1918-1924 by Jay Sherwood Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2019 $29.95 / 9781773860091 Reviewed by Keith Regular * Editor’s note: see also Robert Allen’s review of this book’s predecessor, Surveying the Great Divide: The Alberta/BC Boundary Survey, 1913-1917 (Caitlin Press, 2017) in The Ormsby…
Read more #730 Marking the Great Divide
The Empire on the Western Front: The British 62nd and Canadian 4th Divisions in Battle by Geoffrey Jackson Vancouver: UBC Press, 2019 $34.95 / 9780774860154 Reviewed by James D. Barrett * Geoffrey Jackson’s readable study of the performance of the 62nd Division British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and the 4th Canadian Division (CEF) hits the mark…
Read more #721 Five British Columbia battalions
The Sleeping Giant Awakens: Genocide, Indian Residential Schools, and the Challenge of Conciliation by David B. MacDonald Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2019 $24.95 / 9781487522698 Reviewed by David Milward * When one hears the word “genocide,” it is easy to instantly think of the Holocaust and then not take it any further than that. As…
Read more #644 The Canadian genocide
A Voluntary Crucifixion by David J. MacKinnon Montréal: Guernica Editions, 2019 $25.00 / 9781771832724 Reviewed by Jim Christy * If you’ve ever heard of David MacKinnon, where have you been? Certainly not around the literary scene anywhere in Canada, including his native British Columbia, even though he is arguably one of the best writers in the…
Read more #635 Go east, young man
Sam Steele: A Biography by Rod Macleod Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2018 $35.99 / 9781772123791 Reviewed by Sheldon Goldfarb * There’s a CBC Heritage Minute about Sam Steele. You may have seen it. A stern, moustachioed Mountie sits at his rough wooden desk, staring down an excitable American prospector who wants to wear pistols…
Read more #628 Myths, Mounties, and Métis
Moved by the State: Forced Relocation and Making a Good Life in Postwar Canada by Tina Loo Vancouver: UBC Press, 2019 $29.95 / 9780774861014 Reviewed by LiLynn Wan * Moved by the State is a comparative history of forced relocation and development in five regions in Canada from the 1950s to the 1970s. In some…
Read more #619 Government knows best
The Nature of Canada by Colin M. Coates and Graeme Wynn (editors) Vancouver: UBC Press [On Point Press],2019 $29.95 / 9780774890366 Reviewed by Jenny Clayton * A collaborative effort by some of the leading scholars in the field, The Nature of Canada offers a fresh look at Canadian environmental history. Wishing to showcase research supported…
Read more #603 Deep time to time slipping away
Chop Suey Nation: The Legion Cafe and Other Stories from Canada’s Chinese Restaurants by Ann Hui Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2019 $24.95 / 9781771622226 Reviewed by Imogene Lim * In March 2019, B.C. Bestseller Chop Suey Nation, by Ann Hui, was awarded the 2019 Dr. Edgar Wickberg Book Prize by the Chinese Canadian Historical…
Read more #592 Ginger beef and fried macaroni
At the Centre of Government: The Prime Minister and the Limits of Political Power by Ian Brodie Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2018 $34.95 / 9780773552906 Reviewed by Hamish Telford * A political scientist by training, Ian Brodie served as Stephen Harper’s first chief of staff, 2006-08, and he is now a professor of…
Read more #580 The power behind the P.M.
1919: A Graphic History of the Winnipeg General Strike by the Graphic History Collective and David Lester, with an introduction by James Naylor Toronto: Between the Lines Books, 2019 $19.95 / 9781771134200 Reviewed by Janet Mary Nicol First published March 29, 2019 * Editor’s note: In September 2020, 1919: A Graphic History of the Winnipeg…
Read more #519 Back to Bloody Saturday
21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act: Helping Canadians Make Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples a Reality by Bob Joseph Vancouver: Raincoast Books, 2018 $19.95 / 9780995266520 * Talking Back to the Indian Act: Critical Readings in Settler Colonial Histories by Mary-Ellen Kelm and Keith D. Smith (editors) Toronto: University of Toronto Press,…
Read more #514 Consider the Indian Act
City in Colour: Rediscovered Stories of Victoria’s Multicultural Past by May Q. Wong Victoria: TouchWood Editions, 2018 $22.00 / 9781771512855 Reviewed by Tom Koppel * When I was a kid, my father took me on a brief visit to Victoria. Part of the attraction, for him, was that he’d heard the city described as the…
Read more #513 Victoria’s secret: diversity
Gold Rush Manliness: Race and Gender on the Pacific Slope by Christopher Herbert Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2018 $30.00 (U.S.) / 9780295744131 Reviewed by Robert Hogg * Christopher Herbert has added to the considerable literature on gender in colonial societies, and of frontier masculinities in particular, as well as to the historiography of race,…
Read more #511 Gold, gamblers, greenhorns
North of Familiar: A Woman’s Story of Homesteading and Adventure in the Canadian Wilderness by Terry Milos Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2017 $24.95 / 9781987915457 Reviewed by Heather Graham * In the summer of 1974, a newlywed couple from California, completed paperwork in hand, crossed the border into Canada as immigrants to begin a new…
Read more #495 Of moose and rhubarb wine
A History of Canada in Ten Maps: Epic Stories of Charting a Mysterious Land by Adam Shoalts Toronto: Penguin Canada, 2018 $22.00 / 9780143193982 Reviewed by Graeme Wynn * The universe is made of stories, not atoms. American physicist Sean Carroll once used this line by American poet Muriel Rukeyser as a springboard for his…
Read more #493 Canadian maps that mattered
From Rinks to Regiments: Hockey Hall-of-Famers and the Great War by Alan Livingstone MacLeod Victoria: Heritage House: 2018 $19.95 / 9781772032680 Reviewed by Wayne Norton First published Feb. 15, 2019 * In describing the stellar hockey careers of the men who are the subject matter of his new book, Alan Livingstone MacLeod somehow manages to…
Read more #488 Snipers, rockets, and howitzers
Memories of a Metis Settlement: Eighty Years of East Prairie Metis Settlement by Constance Brissenden (editor) Penticton: Theytus Books, 2018 $14.89 / 9781926886503 Reviewed by Angie Tucker First published Feb. 11, 2019 * When I first received Constance Brissenden’s book, I thumbed through the pages, stopping to look at the faces and places in…
Read more #483 Métis bannock, Métis kinship
How Churchill Waged War: The Most Challenging Decisions of the Second World War by Allen Packwood Barnsley, UK: Pen & Sword Books, 2018 $34.95 (U.S.) / 9781473893894 Reviewed by Peter Clarke First published Jan. 29, 2019 * Each new book about Winston Churchill inevitably faces the question of whether it is really necessary, since there…
Read more #474 Decisions, decisions
Costly Fix: Power, Politics and Nature in the Tar Sands by Ian Urquhart Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018 $39.95 / 9781487594619 Oil’s Deep State: How the Petroleum Industry Undermines Democracy and Stops Action on Global Warming by Kevin Taft Toronto: Lorimer, 2017 $29.95 / 9781459409972 The Big Stall: How Big Oil and Think Tanks…
Read more #468 Power, petroleum, and pipelines