Best of
Canada

1993

Green Grass, Running Water


Thomas King - 1993
    Alberta is a university professor who would like to trade her two boyfriends for a baby but no husband; Lionel is forty and still sells televisions for a patronizing boss; Eli and his log cabin stand in the way of a profitable dam project. These three—and others—are coming to the Blackfoot reservation for the Sun Dance and there they will encounter four Indian elders and their companion, the trickster Coyote—and nothing in the small town of Blossom will be the same again…

Where Right And Glory Lead!: The Battle Of Lundy's Lane, 1814


Donald E. Graves - 1993
    Experts still argue over who won. This account of the desparate battle that took place in sight of Niagara Falls has become a military history classic. The author narrates the events in detail while providing an examination of the weapons, tactics and personalities of the opposing armies. "Fair tretment of both sides in the Lundy's Lane encounter ... should earn this book a 'definitive' treatment for years to come." David Skaggs, Journal of the Early American Republic.

House Humans


Daniel MacIvor - 1993
    Winner of the 1991 Chalmers Canadian Play award, this stand-up-sit-down comedy nightmare introduces one of the most original creations in recent Canadian theatre--a character who develops his mesmerizing hold of the audience by foregrounding his own performance.

In the Skin of a Lion / Running in the Family


Michael Ondaatje - 1993
    

My Father's Son: Memories of War and Peace


Farley Mowat - 1993
    Here is Mowat's memoirs of his service in World War II, his letters to and from his father, and his bizarre tale of steering German war materials back home to Canada. Photographs.

Ravensong


Lee Maracle - 1993
    Ravensong is by turns damning, humorous, inspirational, and prophetic.

Looking at Totem Poles


Hilary Stewart - 1993
    The powerful carvings of the vital and extraordinary beings such as Sea Bear, Thunderbird and Cedar Man are impressive and intriguing.Looking at Totem Poles is an indispensable guide to 110 poles in easily acessible outdoor locations in coastal British Columbia and Alaska. In clear and lively prose, Hilary Stewart describes the various types of poles, their purpose, and how they were carved and raised. She also identifies and explains frequently depicted figures and objects.Each pole, shown in a beautifully detailed drawing, is accompanied by a text that points out the crests, figures and objects carved on it. Historical and cultural background are given, legends are recounted and often the carver's comments or anecdotes enrich the pole's story. Photographs put some of the poles into context or show their carving and raising.This book is a companion volume to Hilary Stewart's enormously successful Looking at Indian Art of the Northwest Coast.

Hockey's Original 6: Great Players of the Golden Era


Mike Leonetti - 1993
    These skillful and often colorful athletes played exhilarating hockey and were national heroes in a time when only six teams and fewer than 150 players battled for the Stanley Cup.Hockey's Original Six celebrates the most dynamic players and exciting moments of the era in more than 120 photographs from the legendary Harold Barkley Archives, including a number of never—or rarely seen—images. From 1942 until the early '70s, Barkley was the Toronto Star's leading sports photographer. He pioneered the use of electronic flash to capture stop-action hockey, and his dramatic work—both black and white and vibrant color—define the pre-expansion period.Two informative essays by Mike Leonetti-hockey historian, archivist, and prolific sportswriter—set Barkley and the photos in context, and short image captions illuminate the players and their feats. Jean Béliveau—hockey legend and elder statesman—provides a personal and insightful foreword. Combining iconic images and hockey lore, Hockey's Original Six is the perfect gift for sports fans, history buffs, and art collectors.

Merry Hearts Make Light Days: The War of 1812 Journal of Lieutenant John Le Couteur, 104th Foot


Donald E. Graves - 1993
    For the next three years he campaigned from Halifax to Buffalo, and he left this entertaining memoir of his experiences of storm-tossed voyages, arduous winter marches, battles and the perils of courtship, played out against the splendid landscapes of North America. His journal is regarded as one of the most useful and entertaining from the War of 1812.

Memoirs


Pierre Trudeau - 1993
    This is his story, told in his own words.Take a look through the book. When you do, you will find that this remarkable memoir has many qualities. It is:PERSONALAs if he were sitting across the table from you, Pierre Trudeau reminisces about his life in an informal, direct way. He starts with his memories of his family, especially his mother and father, to whom the book is dedicated. There are memorable events from childhood here, such as a visit to complain to the principal on his second day at school. Later there is a lunchroom encounter with a high school bully and then, at the age of fifteen, real tragedy.“Aroused by the ringing of the telephone, I came out of my room to go downstairs and find out what was happening. But I froze on the landing when I heard the awful words: ‘Your father is dead, Pierre.’”PHILOSOPHICALAfter an extensive education in Montreal, Boston, London, and Paris, Trudeau set off with a backpack to travel around the world. He tells how he went through one war zone after another, encountering armed bandits and being arrested in wartime Jordan as a Jewish spy. These adventures and further travels through India and war-torn China left with him a deep belief in the rights of the individual and the vital role of government in protecting these rights. He tells how his hatred of narrow nationalism reinforced his stand against requests for special treatment by successive Quebec governments.POLITICALFrom the day he decided to go to Ottawa as a Liberal MP in 1965, Trudeau was clearly on a fast track. After becoming minister of justice in 1967 and tackling very controversial law reforms, he ran for the leadership and became prime minister in 1968 – the first Canadian leader born in the twentieth century. He talks about his use of “the Liberal machine” and all the electoral fights that followed over the year, providing interesting insights into his contests with national opponents such as Robert Stanfield, David Lewis, Joe Clark (a tougher opponent than the man who deposed him), Ed Broadbent, and Brian Mulroney, about whose virtues he is eloquently silent.PERSONALITY-FILLEDAs a leader whose time in office ran from the fall of Charles de Gaulle to the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev, Pierre Trudeau was able to exert his influence to break down the Cold War mentality. He enjoyed good personal rapport with such different leaders as Chou Enlai, Jimmy Carter, Fidel Castro, Helmut Schmidt, and François Mitterand. His relations with Richard Nixon and Margaret Thatcher were less warm, and he was less impressed by Ronald Reagan’s intellect than by the wisdom of the Queen.PATRIOTICWhether they loved him or hated him, Canadians knew that in Pierre Trudeau’s time, the government stood up for Canada. He stood up to the domestic terrorism of the FLQ – and he makes no apologies here for his tough response to the October Crisis in 1970 – just as he stood up to the provincial premiers (including Réné Lévesque) who he believed were blocking the patriation of Canada’s constitution ten years later.PERTINENTThe author’s preface ends with a word to you, the reader. “Whether you were a Liberal Cabinet colleague, a Canadian voter whose support we sought, or a young Canadian whose future we tried to improve, you are a part of this book.”

Bad Imaginings


Caroline Adderson - 1993
    The intensity of these deeply imagined stories is stunning.

When Your Number's Up: The Canadian Soldier in the First World War


Desmond Morton - 1993
    Yet very few of us realize what it was like or what exactly the Canadians were asked to do for country and king. How were these men trained? What was it like tin the trenches? Why did the early disasters of 1915 and 1916 end in the victories of 1918? How did soldiers find the courage to face death and terrible wounds? When your Number's Up is unique in that it deals directly with the lives of these soldiers; it is an upclose, personal view of a very terrible war.The book begins with the "Old Originals" of 1914, describes recruiting, training, battle tactics, even the fate of Canadian prisoners of war. It tells of men who had very little understanding of what they had to face: brutal conditions, disease, mustard gas, trench warfare, and years away from home. Desmond Morton gets behind the battles and the generals and the politicians to give us fresh insight into the people who really make history.

The Wealthy Banker's Wife: The Assault On Equality In Canada


Linda McQuaig - 1993
    

Descent Into Madness


Vernon Frolick - 1993
    The incredible diaries of Michael Oros outline his thoughts, actions, and reactions throughout his 13-year descent into madness. Michael Oros' confiscated diaries, with entries faithfully kept right to the time an Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) bullet ended his life, chronicle this tragic story, including the murder of RCMP Constable Michael Joseph Buday.

Historical Atlas of Canada, Volume II: The Land Transformed, 1800-1891


R. Louis Gentilcore - 1993
    Through breathtaking cartography it vividly captures the great economic and social events that made possible the successful birth of a huge new country.The Land Transformed reveals how a thinly populated and economically limited group of colonies in 1800 came together to become the Canada of the 1890s. The profound revolution was the transformation of the land: forest and grassland gave way to farmland, native populations were moved onto reservations, railways and telegraph tied together widely separated communities; urban commercial centres grew. At the end of the century Canada was recognizable as one of the world's major countries, stretching across a continent, comfortably at home in the world of railways, factories, and well-developed agriculture.The first part of the volume, 'Extending the Frontier: Settlement to Mid-Century, ' describes the growth of the population and the economy in the first half of the century. Maps, graphs, charts, and paintings are used with imagination and clarity to portray the spread of settlement, based on immigration and an accelerated use of resources, the most important of which was land. By the 1850s a dominant agriculture was joined to a productive timber trade as the country's engine of growth.Part II, 'Building a Nation, ' covers the country's 'coming of age.' Between the 1850s and the 1890s political union was achieved, conomic growth continued, and a recognizable Canadian society emerged. These same developments left in their wake a declining and dispersed indigenous population. A series of treaties moved Indian populations to reserves of land in a massive rearrangement of native territory that set the stage for continuing cultural conflict.The nineteenth century witnessed the culmination of four centuries of European engagement in North America. Momentous events of the time are captured in this volume, which provides a splendid visual record of the drama of nation building and the roots of the diverse nation we know today.

Lost Toronto


William Dendy - 1993
    In this intriguing portrait of the city in the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, he assembled almost 150 archival photographs of buildings that had been destroyed or significantly defaced in the intervening years, and discussed them in engrossing detail.

Constitutional Odyssey: Can Canadians Become a Sovereign People?


Peter H. Russell - 1993
    Peter H. Russell frames his analysis around two contrasting constitutional philosophies - Edmund Burke's conception of the constitution as a set of laws and practices incrementally adapting to changing needs and societal differences, and John Locke's ideal of a Constitution as a single document expressing the will of a sovereign people as to how they are to be governed.The first and second editions of Constitutional Odyssey, published in 1992 and 1993 respectively, received wide-ranging praise for their ability to inform the public debate. This third edition continues in that tradition. Russell adds a new preface, and a new chapter on constitutional politics since the defeat of the Charlottetown Accord in 1993. He also looks at the 1995 Quebec Referendum and its fallout, the federal Clarity Act, Quebec's Self-Determination Act, the Agreement on Internal Trade, the Social Union Framework Agreement and the Council of the Federation, progress in Aboriginal self-determination such as Nunavut and the Nisga'a Agreement, and the movement to reduce the democratic deficit in parliamentary government.Comprehensive and eminently readable, Constitutional Odyssey is as important as ever.

The Plays of Codco


Helen Peters - 1993
    CODCO's satiric plays expose universal perversity, ignorance, prejudice and abuse with the ironic wit of the people of Newfoundland. The plays are distinguished by their graveyard or gallows humour. CODCO played an important role in the evolution of Canadian theatre and is an early signifier of Canada's attainment of cultural maturity. CODCO's current weekly television series commenced broadcasting in 1988.

Best Editorial Cartoons of the Year: 1993 Edition


Charles Brooks - 1993
    Sparks from the Rodney King trial set fires throughout Los Angeles as rioters took to the streets. A basketball championship led to an overtime of overturning police cars in the Windy City, while critics accused the White House of turning a deaf ear on the civil war in Yugoslavia and U.N. relief missions to Sarajevo were met by gunfire and shelling.Back at home, the rights of women were a continuing issue as allegations of sexual harassment forced resignations from the Navy, and Olympic heroes brought home world records and gold medals from Barcelona and Albertville.These are just a few of the subjects satirized, analyzed, and characterized by some of the world's top editorial cartoonists. For more than twenty years, The Best Editorial Cartoons of the Year Series has been one of the nation's most-read collections with nearly 200,000 copies in print. This latest addition to the series continues to present the best of the award-winners, the newcomers, and not-yet-famous. From the editorial page at the breakfast table to the pages of this compilation, the featured cartoons and their artists are sure to inspire and humor readers.Aimed at readers with a comic sense of history and those in the political know, The Best Editorial Cartoons of the Year Series is also a must for libraries, schools, and classrooms that teach current events. Often funny, but at times sobering, the collection of works in this latest edition recount the events of 1992 with clarity, creativity, and endless chuckles.ABOUT THE EDITOREditor Charles Brooks is past president of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists and was a cartoonist for the Birmingham (AL) News for thirty-eight years. He has been the recipient of thirteen Freedom Foundation awards, a national VFW award, two Vigilante Patriot awards, and a Sigma Delta Chi award for editorial cartooning. Brooks' cartoons appear in more than eighty books, including textbooks on political science, economics, and history, as well as encyclopedias and yearbooks. His original cartoons are on display in the archives of many libraries.

Wedded to the Cause: Ukrainian-Canadian Women and Ethnic Identity 1891-1991


Frances Swyripa - 1993
    She analyses the images and myths that have grown up around them, why they arose, and how they were used by the leaders of the community.Swyripa argues that ethnicity combined with gender to shape the experience of Ukrainian-Canadian women, as statelessness and national oppression in the homeland joined with a negative group stereotype and minority status in emigration to influence women's roles and options. She explores community attitudes towards the peasant immigrant pioneer, towards her daughters exposed to the opportunities, prejudice, and assimilatory pressure of the Anglo-Canadian world, towards the 'Great Women' evoked as models and sources of inspiration, and towards the familiar baba. In these stereotypes of the female figure, and in the activities of women's organizations, the community played out its many tensions: between a strong attachment to canada and an equally strong attachment to Ukraine; between nationalists who sought to liberate Ukraine from Polish and Soviet rule and progressives who saw themselves as part of an international proletariat; between women's responsibilities as mothers and homemakers and their obligation to participate in both Canadian and community life.Swyripa finds that the concerns of community leaders did not always coincide with those of the grassroots. The differences were best expressed in the evolution of the peasant immigrant pioneer woman as a group symbol, where the tensions between a cultural ethnic consciousness and a politicized national consciousness as the core of Ukrainian-Canadian identity were played out in the female figure.

Kindling Spirit: Lucy Maud Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables (Canadian Fiction Studies series)


Elizabeth Hillman Waterston - 1993
    Each book, about 80 pages in length, contains clear, readable information on a major Canadian novel. These studies are carefully designed readings of the novels; they are not substitutes for reading them. Each book is attractively produced and follows the same format, so students will know exactly what to expect:a chronology of the author's lifethe importance of the bookcritical receptionreading of the textselected list of works cited