Royally Wronged: The Royal Society of Canada and Indigenous Peoples by Constance Backhouse, Cynthia E. Milton, Margaret Kovach, and Adele Perry (editors) Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2021 $39.95 / 9780228009030 Reviewed by J.R. (Jim) Miller Disclosure: the reviewer is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada * In 2016, Dr. Cindy Blackstock…
Read more 1359 A shaky grasp at the Royal Society
Indigenous Repatriation Handbook Prepared by Jisgang Nika Collison, Sdaahl K̲’awaas Lucy Bell, Lou-ann Neel Victoria: Royal BC Museum, 2019 $29.95 / 9780772673176 Reviewed by Mark Turin * Anthropologist Aaron Glass remarked that use of the prefix ‘re’ in words such as repatriation, revitalization, rejuvenation, revival, and resurgence points to the undoing of some past action…
Read more 1345 Museum repatriation and renewal
Coding Democracy: How Hackers are Disrupting Power, Surveillance, and Authoritarianism by Maureen Webb, with a foreword by Cory Doctorow Toronto: Penguin Random House Canada (The MIT Press), 2021 $23.95 / 9780262542289 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * An Unsafe Online World: What happens if do-evil computer nerds overrun do-good ones in the struggle to save democracy?…
Read more 1341 An unsafe online world
The Devil’s Trick: How Canada Fought the Vietnam War by John Boyko Toronto: Penguin Random House Canada (Knopf Canada), 2021 $32.00 / 9780735278004 Reviewed by Howard Macdonald Stewart * Six Easy Pieces. John Boyko has written a compelling, largely anecdotal history of Canada’s involvement in the Americans’ long years of war in Indochina. It consists…
Read more 1340 Canada and Vietnam revisited
Paradise Won: The Struggle to Create Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve by Elizabeth May Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2020 (2nd edition; first published by McClelland & Stewart, 1990) $25.00 / 9781771604581 Reviewed by Ron Dart * Editor’s note: earlier in 2021 we published a review by Ron Verzuh of Paradise Won: The Struggle to Create…
Read more 1329 Return to Moresby Island
China Unbound: A New World Disorder by Joanna Chiu Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 2021 $24.99 / 9781487007676 Reviewed by May Q Wong * What do we really know about China? For centuries, it was a kingdom unto itself, sealed off by choice to the outside world, shrouded in mystery. For over a century, invaders…
Read more 1328 Money talks on the Belt & Road
Prophet Against Slavery. Benjamin Lay: A Graphic Novel by David Lester, with Marcus Rediker and Paul Buhle (editors) Toronto: Penguin Random House Canada (Beacon Press), 2021 $20.00 / 9780807081792 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * Who was Benjamin Lay? A radical 18th-century Quaker challenges slavery It is fair to ask who the central figure is in…
Read more 1327 Who was Benjamin Lay?
Testimonio: Canadian Mining in the Aftermath of Genocides in Guatemala by Catherine Nolin and Grahame Russell (editors) Toronto: Between the Lines Press, 2021 $29.95 / 9781771135627 Reviewed by Howard Macdonald Stewart * Catherine Nolin and Grahame Russell both teach in the Geography Department at the University of Northern British Columbia in Prince George; she’s department…
Read more 1326 Witness to Canadian mining
Geography of British Columbia: People and Landscapes in Transition (fourth edition) by Brett McGillivray Vancouver: UBC Press, 2020 $55.00 / 9780774864329 Reviewed by Ken Favrholdt * Brett McGillivray’s Geography of British Columbia: People and Landscapes in Transition has withstood the test of time since its first edition in 2000, which I reviewed for BC Studies…
Read more 1305 McGillivray’s essential geography
Ron Verzuh reviews two books: Be Kind, Be Calm, Be Safe: Four Weeks that Shaped a Pandemic by Bonnie Henry and Lynn Henry Toronto: Penguin Random House Canada (Allen Lane), 2021 $26.95 / 9780735241855 * Soap and Water and Common Sense: The Definitive Guide to Viruses, Bacteria, Parasites, and Disease by Bonnie Henry Toronto: House…
Read more 1303 Bonnie Henry: writer
Linda Rogers reviews two books: Indian in the Cabinet: Speaking Truth to Power by Jody Wilson-Raybould Toronto: HarperCollins Canada, 2021 $34.99 / 9781443465366 * From Where I Stand: Rebuilding Indigenous Nations for a Stronger Canada by Jody Wilson-Raybould Vancouver: UBC Press, 2019 $24.95 / 9780774880534 * CHARACTER, a drama with some bad actors and some…
Read more 1302 Lessons from the Big House
Erebus: One Ship, Two Epic Voyages, and the Greatest Naval Mystery of All Time by Michael Palin Toronto: Penguin Random House Canada (Vintage Canada), 2019 $23.00 / 9780735274297 Reviewed by Walter Volovsek * Editor’s note. A vigilant reader of The Ormsby Review might be startled to see Michael Palin’s Erebus: One Ship, Two Epic Voyages,…
Read more 1301 Goosebumps & unbroken ice
Restoring Democracy in an Age of Populists and Pestilence by Jonathan Manthorpe Toronto: Cormorant Books, 2020 $24.95 / 9781770865822 Reviewed by Eric W. Sager * We now have a large shelfful of books on the perilous state of democracy in the twenty-first century. These books are responding to an apparent crisis: the decline in the…
Read more 1281 Democracy in danger
The Environmentalist’s Dilemma: Promise and Peril in an Age of Climate Crisis by Arno Kopecky Toronto: ECW Press, 2021 $24.95 / 9781770416093 Reviewed by Mike Starr * The Environmentalist’s Dilemma is not a typical environmental call to action. This book is more difficult to categorize; it is non-fiction, intensely personal, and autobiographical in parts, including…
Read more 1279 Many little acts of rebellion
The York Factory Express: Fort Vancouver to Hudson Bay, 1826-1849 by Nancy Marguerite Anderson Vancouver: Ronsdale Books, 2021 $24.95 / 9781553805786 Reviewed by Walter Volovsek * The York Factory Express was an enterprise for transporting Hudson’s Bay Company records, correspondence, and external mail along a water-based route that spanned the continent. This aquatic highway linked…
Read more 1278 Across the continent before GPS
One Man in His Time… A Memoir by Michael Audain Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2021 $36.95 / 9781771623001 Reviewed by Maria Tippett * No conventional memoir, One Man in his time. . . allows Michael Audain to roll out his life story in a randomly selected collection of “tales” and “anecdotes” that resemble fireside…
Read more 1275 The making of an art collector
Mining Country: A History of Canada’s Mines and Miners by John Sandlos and Arn Keeling Toronto: James Lorimer and Company, 2021 $29.95 / 9781459413535 Reviewed by Robert G. McCandless * The introduction to this attractive book says Canada’s mining history is “curiously neglected,” then steps into that gap to present two hundred years of history….
Read more 1273 Ancient craft, long history
ESSAY: An “Odd-Man” at Government House, Victoria by Robert Ratcliffe Taylor * For most people, reading another person’s diary is a furtive and shameful act. For historians, however, studying the private journal of a long-dead person can be a valuable and exciting, if occasionally puzzling, endeavour. In 1870, Robert Colston was both the official government…
Read more 1267 Footman at Government House
Exporting Virtue? China’s International Human Rights Activism in the Age of Xi Zinping by Pitman B. Potter Vancouver: UBC Press, 2021 $32.95 / 9780774865562 Reviewed by Larry Hannant * With the resolution of the three-year saga of the 3 Ms (the two Michaels and Meng), British Columbians might be thinking they’ll get a break from…
Read more 1257 China’s human rights orthodoxies
Queen Victoria: This Thorny Crown by Michael Ledger-Lomas Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. (Spiritual Lives Series). $40.00 (U.S.) / 9780198753551 Reviewed by Simon Devereaux * This compact, densely written volume fills a surprisingly large gap in the vast biographical literature on Queen Victoria. The Victorian age is well-known for its public religiosity. It was manifest…
Read more 1255 Victoria’s religion of the heart