History

Looking for Anne: How Lucy Maud Montgomery Dreamed Up a Literary Classic

Everything seems to be coming up Anne Shirley in this, the centenary of the first publication of Anne of Green Gables. Rather than simply rehashing available material, Ryerson professor and noted literary researcher Irene Gammel ... Read More »

August 28, 2008 | Filed under: History

Renegades: Canadians in the Spanish Civil War

By Michael Petrou

When General Franco rebelled against the Spanish government in 1936, more than 1,700 Canadians volunteered to fight in that country’s civil war. Very little was known about the volunteers, many of whom, due to the ... Read More »

July 31, 2008 | Filed under: History

★ Terrible Victory: First Canadian Army and the Scheldt Estuary Campaign, September 13 – November 6, 1944

By Mark Zuehlke

Best known for his meticulously detailed accounts of Canadian Second World War battles in Normandy and Italy, historian Mark Zuehlke has brought to life a woefully under-recorded chapter in Canadian history in the excellent Terrible ... Read More »

March 28, 2008 | Filed under: Children and YA Non-fiction, History

Angel of Vengeance: The “Girl Assassin,” the Governor of St. Petersburg, and Russia’s Revolutionary World

By Ana Siljak

In Angel of Vengeance, Queen’s University history professor Ana Siljak tells the story of Russian radicalism, taking as her hook the life of would-be assassin and revolutionary doyenne Vera Zasulich. Of Zasulich herself, there isn’t ... Read More »

March 27, 2008 | Filed under: Children and YA Non-fiction, History

★ Sugar: A Bittersweet History

By Elizabeth Abbott

Everyone knows too much sugar is bad for you. But after reading Elizabeth Abbott’s brilliant and assiduously researched Sugar, the truth of exactly how bad will become clear. Abbott takes a spoonful of sugar and ... Read More »

March 3, 2008 | Filed under: History

Arc of the Medicine Line: Mapping the World’s Longest Undefended Border Across the Western Plains

By Tony Rees

Comparing a Canadian-history writer with Pierre Berton is not something that should be done lightly; Berton’s ability to make history accessible to the masses is legendary. However, with Arc of the Medicine Line, Tony Rees ... Read More »

December 20, 2007 | Filed under: History

Kasztner’s Train: The True Story of Rezsö Kasztner, Unknown Hero of the Holocaust

By Anna Porter

A Hungarian Jew, Rezsö Kasztner spent most of the Second World War trying to prevent his neighbours from being deported to concentration camps. He was successful in his endeavours because he appealed to the basest ... Read More »

September 24, 2007 | Filed under: Children and YA Non-fiction, History

The Last to Die: Ronald Turpin, Arthur Lucas, and the End of Capital Punishment in Canada

By Robert J. Hoshowsky

Robert J. Hoshowsky admits to being slightly obsessed with Ronald Turpin and Arthur Lucas, the last two men hanged in Canada. In The Last to Die, Hoshowsky has reconstructed the lives and deaths of Turpin ... Read More »

July 27, 2007 | Filed under: History

Witch in the Wind: The True Story of the Legendary Bluenose

By Marq de Villiers

The Bluenose is a Canadian icon, the symbol of an age when schooners ruled the waves and were depended upon by many a Maritime family. In his latest book, Governor General’s Award winner Marq de ... Read More »

July 27, 2007 | Filed under: Children and YA Non-fiction, History

The New Cold War: Revolutions, Rigged Elections and Pipeline Politics in the Former Soviet Union

By Mark MacKinnon

The dissolution of the U.S.S.R. in 1991 was followed not by a sudden flowering of democracy, but by the seizure of political and economic power by former Communist apparatchiks. Opposition to the new regimes by ... Read More »