Michael Lait reviews two books: Small Cities, Big Issues: Reconceiving Community in a Neoliberal Era by Christopher Walmsley and Terry Kading (editors) Edmonton: Athabasca University Press, 2018 $37.95 / 9781771991636 Free pdf available here. * No Straight Lines: Local Leadership and the Path From Government to Governance in Small Cities by Terry Kading (editor) Calgary:…
Read more #473 Small cities take centre stage
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
Marjorie: Too Afraid To Cry. A Home Child Experience by Patricia Skidmore Toronto: Dundurn, 2012 $30.00 / 9781459703391 * Marjorie: Her War Years. A British Home Child in Canada by Patricia Skidmore Toronto: Dundurn, 2018 $30.00 / 9781459741669 * Both books reviewed by Sylvia Crooks First published December 26, 2018 * …
Read more #454 The home children of Cowichan
Seeking the Fabled City: The Canadian Jewish Experience by Allan Levine Toronto: Penguin Random House Canada (McClelland & Stewart), 2018 $45.00 / 9780771048050 Reviewed by Sheldon Goldfarb First published Dec. 21, 2018 * Have you heard the one about the Winnipeg paper that tried to explain the ways of this strange new people, the Jews,…
Read more #452 Jewish arrival and survival
Otter’s Journey Through Indigenous Language and Law by Lindsay Borrows Vancouver: UBC Press, 2018 $32.95 / 9780774836586 Reviewed by Hadley Friedland First published Dec. 3, 2018 * Lindsay Borrows is both a gifted story-teller and a meticulous researcher. In her first book, Otter’s Journey Through Indigenous Language and Law, readers benefit from both strengths. Borrows’…
Read more #437 Otter goes global
Before and After the State: Politics, Poetics, and People(s) in the Pacific Northwest by Allan K. McDougall, Lisa Philips, and Daniel L. Boxberger Vancouver: UBC Press, 2018 $34.95 / 9780774836685 Reviewed by John Douglas Belshaw * One cannot these days escape the slogan of the Trump campaign: “Make America Great Again.” Set aside GDP, living…
Read more #433 Discord on the Pacific slope
Codename Project 9: How a Small British Columbia City Helped Create the Atomic Bomb by Ron Verzuh CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2018 $13.08 / 9781720820703 Reviewed by Michael Sasges First published Nov. 22, 2018 * Codename Project 9 is a small book that engenders reflections on some big history. Since 1945, journalists and scholars…
Read more #429 Trail, the bomb, and Blaylock
The Last Suffragist Standing: The Life and Times of Laura Marshall Jamieson by Veronica Strong-Boag Vancouver: UBC Press, 2018 $32.95 / 9780774838696 Reviewed by Patricia Roy First published Nov. 15, 2018. * The Life and Times is an old-fashioned title, but nothing is old-fashioned about this book. The sub-title is especially appropriate for a biography…
Read more #424 In search of Laura Jamieson
One Hundred Years of Struggle: The History of Women and the Vote in Canada by Joan Sangster Vancouver: UBC Press, 2018 $27.95 / 9780774835336 Reviewed by Barbara Messamore First published Nov. 12, 2018 * Joan Sangster’s clear, concise, and lively treatment of the women’s suffrage movement in Canada provides a broad historical survey while presenting…
Read more #421 Suffragist city
Talking Past Each Other: Quebec and the Federal Dialogue in Canada, 1867-2017 by Hamish Telford New York and Bern: Peter Lang, 2018 $99.95 (U.S.) / 9781433150487 Reviewed by Nelson Wiseman First published Nov. 10, 2018 * Hamish Telford, professor of political science at the University of the Fraser Valley, media commentator and frequent Ormsby reviewer, is…
Read more #419 Talking federal politics
ESSAY: A Person of Some Consequence: Attorney-general George Hunter Cary (1832-1866) by Robert Ratcliffe Taylor First published October 31st, 2018 * Victoria historian Robert Ratcliffe Taylor previously contributed an essay to these pages on the career of the forgotten architect Hermann Tiedemann (The Ormsby Review no. 211, November 26, 2017). Now Taylor turns his attention…
Read more #411 The boy Attorney-General of B.C.
On the Line: A History of the British Columbia Labour Movement by Rod Mickleburgh Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2018 $44.95 / 97871550178265 Reviewed by Bryan D. Palmer First published Aug. 22, 2018 * For four tumultuous months in 1983, the grassroots labour initiative in B.C. called the Solidarity Coalition–which took its name as an offshoot…
Read more #348 The ghost of Jack Munro
Southern Northwest Coast Indigenous Canoe Racing: A Brief History by Alan L. Hoover Victoria: NWC Canoe Publications, 2018 $14.95 / 9781775011903 Reviewed by Sanford Osler First published Jul. 2, 2018 * Once a year my local oceanfront park in North Vancouver fills with campers bringing dozens of long sleek wooden canoes to race over the…
Read more #333 Indigenous canoe racing
The Dog Lover Unit: Lessons in Courage from the World’s K9 Cops by Rachel Rose New York: St. Martin’s Press (Macmillan Publishers), 2017 $28.99 / 9781250110749 Reviewed by Bonnie Reilly Schmidt First published May 30, 2018 * Rachel Rose’s The Dog Lover Unit: Lessons in Courage from the World’s K9 Cops is a surprising departure…
Read more #311 I fought the law, and the dog won
First published May 28, 2018. A Matter of Confidence: The Inside Story of the Political Battle for BC by Rob Shaw and Richard Zussman Victoria: Heritage House, 2018. $22.95 / 9781772032543 Reviewed by Hamish Telford * The British Columbia provincial election on May 9, 2017 was one for the history books. After a long night…
Read more #309 Christy Clark’s downfall
First published May 25, 2018. City on Edge: A Rebellious Century of Vancouver Protests, Riots, and Strikes by Kate Bird, foreword by Charles Demers Vancouver: Greystone Books, 2017. $32.95 / 9781771643139 Reviewed by Larry Hannant * We would be remiss if we did not preface this review with a notation that Michael Barnholden has previously…
Read more #308 A little revolution, please
First published May 24, 2018. The Canadian Party System: An Analytic History by Richard Johnston Vancouver: UBC Press, 2017. $55 / 9780774836074 Reviewed by Adam Coombs * Few political parties in countries within the Westminster political system have been as successful over the course of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries as the Liberal Party…
Read more #307 Why Liberals dominate federally
Alan Caswell Collier, Relief Stiff: An Artist’s Letters from Depression-era British Columbia by Peter Neary (editor) Vancouver: UBC Press, 2018 $45.00 / 9780774834988 Reviewed by Daniel Francis First published May 8, 2018 * Most British Columbians live within an easy drive of one of the unemployment relief camps established by the federal government during the…
Read more #302 Middle class artist on relief
The Cinderella Campaign: First Canadian Army and the Battles for the Channel Ports by Mark Zuehlke Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 2017 $37.95 / 9781771620895 Reviewed by Norm Fennema First published April 30, 2018 * Prolific historian Mark Zuehlke describes how battle-hardened but “woefully understrength” Canadian soldiers chased retreating Germans north towards the Seine River in…
Read more #295 Cinderella Campaign revisited
The Clean Money Revolution: Reinventing Power, Purpose, and Capitalism by Joel Solomon with Tyee Bridge Gabriola Island: New Society Publishers, 2017 $29.99 / 9780865718395 Reviewed by Jawad Qureshy First published April 2, 2018 * Born in Tennessee in 1954, Joel Solomon was educated at Vassar College, worked as national youth co-ordinator on Jimmy Carter’s election campaign…
Read more #279 The wisdom of Solomon