Category Archives: Book Reviews
Drache, Daniel. Borders Matter: Homeland Security and the Search for North America. 2004. Fernwood Publishing, Halifax, NS.
Our border with the USA is both the symbol and the geographic reality of our nearness and our similarities to - and our differences from - the culture of that large and looming giant that 80% of us live within shopping distance of. In spite of recent efforts to integrate Canada, militarily and economically into the USA, we have a unique society and many values worth preserving. That is the crux of Drache’s optimistic presentation.
Integration seemed to be an assured downhill slide after NAFTA was signed seven years ago, but Drache says Read more [...]
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Dressel, Holly. WHO KILLED THE QUEEN? The Story of a Community Hospital and How to Fix Public Health Care. 2008. McGill—Queen’s University Press. Montreal & Kingston. Canada
“These facts lead to only one conclusion: public health, with its integral conception of ultimate social equality is the key to health in general.”
This book might also have been subtitled: Who really runs Canada? Dressel, a respected historian, was funded to investigate the closing of an excellent hospital, the Queen Elizabeth with a long tradition of successful patient care when it was forced to close along with many other hospitals in Montréal and the rest of Canada in the mid-1990s.
Dressel starts with the local — the history Read more [...]
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Ebadi, Shirin with Azadeh Moaveni. IRAN AWAKENING. 2006. Alfred A. Knopf. Canada
“The price of transforming Iran peacefully, I have long known but these days feel more acutely, is sacrifice of the highest order.”
As the USA rattles its bombs and boycotts at Iran, I found 2 books that helped me understand that country and its recent past; it all started in 1953 when the CIA overthrew the democratic and nationalist leader of Iran, Mossadegh, and installed the Shah to do the USA’s bidding. Ebadi’s memoir is the story of a society and its resistance, not just of one woman.
Shirin Ebadi started life as a privileged Read more [...] Comments Off on Ebadi, Shirin with Azadeh Moaveni. IRAN AWAKENING. 2006. Alfred A. Knopf. Canada
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Edwards, David. Free to be Human: Intellectual Self-Defence in an Age of illusions. Resurgence Books, Totnes, Devon, UK. 2000.
This UK environmental writer draws on Chomsky, Fromm and other writers to explain how we can free ourselves from the destructive and unthinking acceptance of corporate capitalism and all its trappings.
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Eichler, Maya. Militarizing Men: Gender, Conscription and War in Post–Soviet Russia. 2012. Stanford University Press, USA.
“Men are not naturally militaristic, they become militarized…If men are not willing to serve and their mothers or female partners do not want them to join the military, the state is less able to wage war or legitimate its rule on the basis of militarized patriotism.”
“Militarized masculinity is part of the foundation of the contemporary international system.”
From this dry sounding title of an academic work – the book is based on a PhD dissertation – comes a fascinating story of militarization of men as the very basis of modern Read more [...] Comments Off on Eichler, Maya. Militarizing Men: Gender, Conscription and War in Post–Soviet Russia. 2012. Stanford University Press, USA.
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Elmessiri, A.M., editor. The Palestinian Wedding: A Bilingual Anthology of Contemporary Palestinian Resistance Poetry. 2011. Lynne Rienner Publishers Inc. Colorado, USA & London, UK.
“The seed sprouts even within the heart of the dead./ Morning busts forth from darkness.” Fadwa Tuqan
Mourid Barghouti, Palestinian poet in exile, has said, “literature is also resistance” The current poetry of resistance is important as part of a greater history and cultural resistance of Palestine and its Arab neighbours, all of whom have resisted European, Ottoman and the present Zionist invasions and occupations. The poems in this intense collection are an expression of the beauty of life and the horrors of injustice, compressed into Read more [...]
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Engels, Mary-Louise. Rosalie Bertell: Scientist, Eco-Feminist, Visionary. 2005. Women’s Press, Women Who Rock series, Toronto, CANADA.
Rosalie Bertell has been a hero of mine for many years so I was pleased to learn that a much needed biography of her was in the making. I was even more pleased to be asked to contribute some thoughts and a photo of Rosalie to Engels’ work.
The scholarship, courage, determination and foresight of this remarkable woman deserve to be known to all activists seeking sources of inspiration and wisdom.
Frail from birth, Rosalie was a serious student encouraged in her talent for mathematics and music by caring parents. Her Canadian mother was Read more [...]
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ENGLER, YVES. A Propaganda System: How Canada’s government, corporations, media and academia Sell war and exploitation.2016. Red Publishing and Fernwood Publishing. Canada
Review by Theresa Wolfwood
‘ “why do nine in ten Canadians think this country is a forc for good in the world even though our governments have long advanced corporate interests and sided with the British and US empires?” This book is an attempt to answer this and other related questions.’
Yves Engler continues in this latest book to analyze and expose to Canadians the fallacy of our belief that Canada is ‘nice guy’ and a peace loving democracy. Instead as he shows we perpetrate and nourish a culture of Read more [...] Comments Off on ENGLER, YVES. A Propaganda System: How Canada’s government, corporations, media and academia Sell war and exploitation.2016. Red Publishing and Fernwood Publishing. Canada
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Engler, Yves. Canada and Israel: Building Apartheid. 2010. RED Publishing, B.C. and Fernwood Publishing, N.S. Canada.
“Thousands of books describe various aspects of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. Only a handful detail Canada´s ties to the dispute and most do from a pro–Israel perspective. This is the first book to focus on Canadian support for the dispossession of Palestinians, for a state based on one religion, and for the last major European colonial project.”
Canadian progressives and activists are distressingly like the right–wing elite in one way; we tend to get our information and analysis from the USA, not Canada. So Yves Engler´s books Read more [...] Comments Off on Engler, Yves. Canada and Israel: Building Apartheid. 2010. RED Publishing, B.C. and Fernwood Publishing, N.S. Canada.
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Engler, Yves. CANADA in AFRICA: 300 years of ad and exploitation. 2015. RED publishing/ Fernwood Publishing Canada. ISBN 978-1-55266762-0
Review and author photo by Theresa Wolfwood
“Canadian policy provides a unique window into Western exploitation of Africa and this book can hopefully contribute to overcoming widespread ignorance of African affairs.”
Engler has done it again; written another carefully documented, well-crafted history and analysis, this time about Canada’s involvement in past centuries and today in Africa. And once again he reveals the myth behind our idea that Canada and we Canadians are ‘good guys” in a bad world. With few exceptions we are right Read more [...] Comments Off on Engler, Yves. CANADA in AFRICA: 300 years of ad and exploitation. 2015. RED publishing/ Fernwood Publishing Canada. ISBN 978-1-55266762-0
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Engler, Yves. Lester Pearson’s Peacekeeping – The Truth May Hurt. 2012. RED Publishing/ Fernwood Publishing. CANADA.
My earliest memory of Canada´s famous, so–called peace maker is when he made Canada a nuclear nation. I remember that after his well–funded campaign defeated Diefenbaker, Bowmarc nuclear missiles entered Canada on the back on a truck on New Year´s Eve, 1963. They stayed across Canada in various military bases until Trudeau phased them out in 1971. So much for peace–keeping and the Nobel Peace Prize (awarded to Henry Kissinger in 1973, thereby losing all credibility anyhow).
However it should be no surprise, as Engler documents in the Read more [...] Comments Off on Engler, Yves. Lester Pearson’s Peacekeeping – The Truth May Hurt. 2012. RED Publishing/ Fernwood Publishing. CANADA.
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Engler, Yves. The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy. 2009. Fernwood Publishing & RED Publishing. Canada.
“I believe Earth is our home and we are its stewards. While citizens of Canada, we are also neighbours to everyone who shares this planet. We must be good neighbours. That should be the underlying premise of Canada´s foreign policy. This book is aimed at people who share this basic political viewpoint and who also believe that democracy requires citizens to keep themselves informed about what their country is doing. Canadians have a right and a responsibility to know, debate and ultimately shape what is being done in our name around the world.”
When Read more [...] Comments Off on Engler, Yves. The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy. 2009. Fernwood Publishing & RED Publishing. Canada.
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