Showing titles in Canada

In December 1919, Ambrose Small, the mercurial owner of the Grand Opera House in Toronto, closed a deal to sell his network of Ontario theatres, deposited a million-dollar cheque in his bank account, and was never seen again. As weeks turned to years, the disappearance became the most "extraordinary unsolved mystery" of its time.

Dammed: The Politics of Loss and Survival in Anishinaabe Territory explores Canada’s hydroelectric boom in the Lake of the Woods area. It complicates narratives of increasing affluence in postwar Canada, revealing that the inverse was true for Indigenous communities along the Winnipeg River.

Through the lens of six remarkable people, some well-known, others obscure, best-selling historian John Boyko recounts Canada's often-overlooked involvement in that conflict as peacemaker, combatant, and provider of weapons and sanctuary. When Brigadier General Sherwood Lett arrived in Vietnam over a decade before American troops, he and the Canadians under his command risked their lives trying to enforce an unstable peace while questioning whether they were merely handmaidens to a new war.

Life Among the Qallunaat is the story of Mini Aodla Freeman’s experiences growing up in the Inuit communities of James Bay and her journey in the 1950s from her home to the strange land and stranger customs of the Qallunaat, those living south of the Arctic. Her extraordinary story, sometimes humourous and sometimes heartbreaking, illustrates an Inuit woman’s movement between worlds and ways of understanding. It also provides a clear-eyed record of the changes that swept through Inuit communities in the 1940s and 1950s.

Against the Odds chronicles Thomas R. Berger's significant contributions to Indigenous rights advocacy in Canada and the United States. Mid-career, Berger led the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, conducting over thirty community hearings in the Northwest Territories to ensure that First Nations' voices were heard. Later, he also led public hearings on the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.

La vérité a souvent un goût amer. Nous ne savons comment accepter nos histoires. Faut-il s'en tenir aux faits et dire la vérité ? Cet ouvrage monumental si richement documenté est précieux, il nous tire de l'oubli et du silence. Que savons-nous de l'esclavage au Canada ? Que savons-nous de la répression exercée sur les femmes et les hommes noirs ? Que savons-nous du racisme systémique ? Que savons-nous de la détresse des Autochtones, des sans-papiers, des personnes réfugiées ? Enfin fort peu...

How did the confederation of Canada come to be? Listen to the captivating story about the bold visionaries who united the British colonies north of the United States of America, into the confederation that has become Canada. Written in 1916, this compelling narrative brings to life the political intrigue, intense debates, and remarkable compromises that forged the Confederation of Canada in 1867. Colquhoun chronicles the not so simple effort of drawing all the provinces together to form a nation.

Québec, 1815. Ange-Élisabeth Boucher de Montizambert, 17 ans, a toujours fait ce qu’on attendait d’elle. Fiancée officieusement depuis sa naissance à Richard Philippe Guyon, riche héritier d’un empire fondé sur l’import-export, elle fait l’envie de bien d’autres jeunes filles de son rang. Cependant, quand Richard part étudier en Angleterre et que son père prend la direction du lac Saint-Jean, «en pays sauvage», Angélie se sent soudainement moins sûre d’elle-même et de son avenir.

It is the last decade of the 19th century. The Wild West has been tamed and its fierce, independent and often violent larger-than-life figures – gun-toting wanderers, trappers, prospectors, Indian fighters, cowboys, and lawmen –are now victims of their own success. They are heroes who’ve outlived their usefulness.

Canada is not one nation, but three: English Canada, Quebec, and First Nations. Yet as a country Canada is very successful, in part because it maintains national diversity through bilingualism, multiculturalism, and federalism. Alongside this contemporary openness Canada also has its own history to contend with; with a legacy of broken treaties and residential schools for its Indigenous peoples, making reconciliation between Canada and First Nations an ongoing journey, not a destination.

Faisant fi des conseils de ses proches, Ange-Élizabeth Boucher de Montizambert s'embarque en direction du poste de traite du lac Chamouchouane, près du lac St-Jean, afin de rejoindre son père, qu'elle sait très malade et qu'elle imagine peut-être même mort. Sortie des riches salons de Québec, la voici à parcourir lacs et rivières dans des canots peuplés de voyageurs, sous les ordres d'un mystérieux guide innu.

His drug- and alcohol-fueled antics made world headlines and engulfed a city in unprecedented controversy. Toronto mayor Rob Ford's personal and political troubles have occupied center stage in North America's fourth-largest city since news broke that drug dealers were selling a videotape of Ford appearing to smoke crack cocaine. Reporter Robyn Doolittle was one of three journalists to view the video and report on its contents in May 2013.

In 1755, New England troops embarked on a "great and noble scheme" to expel 18,000 French-speaking Acadians from Nova Scotia, killing thousands, separating innumerable families, and driving many into forests where they waged a desperate guerrilla resistance. The right of neutrality - to live in peace from the imperial wars waged between France and England - had been one of the founding values of Acadia. John Mack Faragher draws on original research to weave 150 years of history into a gripping narrative of both the civilization of Acadia and the British plot to destroy it.

Apart from The Last of the Mohicans, most Americans know little of the French and Indian War, also known as the Seven Years' War, and yet it remains one of the most fascinating periods in our history. In January 2006, PBS will air The War That Made America, a four-part documentary about this epic conflict. Fred Anderson, the award-winning and critically acclaimed historian, has written the official tie-in to this exciting television event.

A gold mine. A millionaire. An island paradise. An unsolved murder. A missing fortune. The story of the infamous Sir Harry Oakes as only Charlotte Gray can tell it.

The history of the press gallery is rich in anecdotes about the people on Parliament Hill who have covered 23 prime ministers and 42 elections in the past 150 years. Mining the archives and his own interviews, Robert Lewis turns the spotlight on the watchers, including reporters who got too close to power and others who kept their distance.

The story of "O Canada" is one of the great unknowns of our collective lives. No longer. This formidable and gorgeous tale documents the history of this song of a nation, from its origins in French Canada in the years just after Confederation to the surprisingly controversial story of its adoption as Canada's national anthem 100 years later. Song of a Nation is also the extraordinary and mysterious story of Calixa Lavallée - the anthem's French-Canadian composer - and his compelling, almost unbelievable personal journey.

Dream Car tells the story of entrepreneur Malcolm Bricklin’s fantastical 1970s-era Safety Vehicle-1 (SV1), audaciously launched during a tumultuous breakpoint in postwar history. The tale of the sexy-yet-safe SV1 reveals the influence of automobiles on ideas about the future, technology, entrepreneurship, risk, safety, showmanship, politics, sex, gender, business, and the state, as well as the history of the auto industry’s birth, decline, and rebirth.

While many volumes devoted to the punk and hardcore scenes in America grace bookstore shelves, Canada’s contributions to the genre remain largely unacknowledged. For the first time, the birth of Canadian punk - a transformative cultural force that spread across the country at the end of the 1970s - is captured between the pages of this important resource. Delving deeper than standard band biographies, this book articulates how the advent of punk reshaped the culture of cities across Canada, speeding along the creation of alternative means of cultural production, consumption, and distribution.

Since 2010, Toronto's headlines have been consumed by the outrageous personal foibles and government-slashing, anti-urbanist policies of Mayor Rob Ford. But the heated debate at City Hall has obscured a bigger, decade-long narrative of Toronto's ascendance as a mature global city. Some Great Idea traces how post-amalgamation, and under three very different mayors, Toronto managed to so quickly oscillate from one extreme to another, and how the city might proceed from here.