Search results for ""Baraka Books""

Former UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali declared to author Robin Philpot that “the Rwandan Genocide was 100 percent American responsibility.” Yet a more official narrative would have it that horrible Hutu génocidaires planned and executed a satanic scheme to eliminate nearly one million Tutsis after the Rwandan presidential plane crashed in the heart of dark Africa on April 6, 1994. Where do these two contradictory narratives come from? Which is true? Robin Philpot’s vast and methodical research, extensive interviews, and close analysis of events, testimony in courts, and popular writings on the subject show not only that that official narrative is false, but that it was edified to cover up the causes of the tragedy and to protect the criminals responsible for it. What’s more, to make that story more believable, the storytellers have unfailingly reproduced the literary traditions, clichés, and metaphors that provided the underpinnings of slavery, the slave-trade, and colonialism. Nearly 20 years later, the facts about the Rwandan tragedy have been so distorted and the adjudicated facts ignored that Rwanda is now used everywhere to justify so-called humanitarian intervention throughout Africa (and the world). It has become a “useful imperial fiction,” and for that reason, this book seeks to find out what really happened there.

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Written by practicing criminal defense lawyers, jurists, investigators, and specialised journalists, this book criticises the whole initiative of international criminal justice and considers the idea that it must be abandoned in the name of justice. Has foreign policy trumped justice? How are equity, equality before the law, absence of selectivity, protection of witnesses, and enforcement affected? How are lives of citizens throughout the world changed by International Justice? Asking the burning questions about criminal justice as it is practiced at the International Criminal Court, the ad-hoc tribunals for Rwanda, and the former Yugoslavia, Sierra Leone, this account will appeal to those interested in politics, law, and human rights.

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In the spring of 1651, a 15-year-old Parisian, Pierre-Esprit Radisson, lands in Trois-Rivières on the St. Lawrence River. Within weeks, the course of his life changes dramatically when Iroquois braves capture him. Canoeing across rivers and lakes and portaging over mountains, Radisson’s captors take him to distant lands where they first torture him, then adopt him as a brother. In this first tome of the adventures of North America’s most famous coureur des bois—an independent entrepreneurial woodsman—Radisson recounts his journey throughout North America and his adoption by the Iroquois. This book, which explores a continent’s history in an era of bravery and heroism, is the stuff of legend.

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Told from an ordinary man’s perspective, these are the journal and letters of Wilhelm Weike as he accompanied Franz Boas—the father of modern anthropology—on his journey to the arctic from 1883 to 1884. This extraordinary document of early arctic history provides a plain, direct view of the Inuit and the whalers in their arctic environment at the end of the 19th century. With invaluable contextual and complementary information, this book contributes key insights during the recent wave of scientific assessment of Franz Boas’s legacy in all social sciences.

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Diagnosed with incurable cancer in 2009 with a maximum six-year life expectancy, the author chronicles her journey through traditional and alternative treatments to complete remission. Without rejecting traditional treatment (i.e., chemo or radio therapies), she refused to be an object to be treated by others. Though initially terrified, she was able to move on, insisting on knowing what was going on and why. This required research, adventure (trips to other countries), sadness, humour, serenity, and some very surprising “alternatives.” These include self-hypnosis, determining the emotional causes of my lymphoma, working with a medium, and the essential need for laughter and hope. Her roadmap could be described as interactive, since newly-diagnosed cancer patients overwhelmed by their situation can adapt her approach to their lives.

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This smartly illustrated literary miscellanea is intended to stimulate readers and writers of English prose. From "dead language – the speaks" (i.e., ad-speak, media-speak, corporate-speak) through "re-writing – Again?" to rules (to obey or not to obey), authors Barry Healey and Cordelia Strube examine what makes good and bad writing. With tongue often in cheek, they scrutinize various forms of prose and the seven major prose elements, and reflect on how to approach the writing process most effectively. Exhilarating Prose also abounds with examples of startling writing, wide-ranging quotes from celebrated authors, and their own ruminations on the oddities of writing and the infinite eccentricity of the human mind. To those interested in English words "in their best order" (Coleridge), this book will inform, engage, and amuse.

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Bloody Sunday (1972) catapulted the Irish 'troubles' onto the world stage, exacerbating suspicion in US intelligence circles that the IRA might turn to the Soviets for guns. South Boston native Raymond Daly, just off a CIA stint in Laos, is sent to Ireland to re-establish a line running guns to the IRA. He deftly earns the trust of gunrunner Slowey, a tough money-making South Boston native, who introduces him to an IRA splinter group operating near Blacklion, a town bordering on Northern Ireland. Ray begins to manipulate Aoife, an Irish woman, in order to gain the trust of the community and embed himself in the organization. After the British Special Air Services raid a safehouse, Ray finds himself involved in executing an informant and his wife. But he also finds himself getting soft on some of those he was sent to infiltrate and becoming more like his cover, 'an Irish American gunrunner with a romantic attachment to the Cause,' and less like an obedient CIA operative. Events spiral, culminating in a shootout with the British army that compels Ray to make a Faustian decision on his future and that of Aoife and the others he was assigned to manipulate.

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Hydro-Québec manages one of the largest power grids on the continent. It is among the most profitable, the least expensive and the greenest. With a stunning renewable energy rate of 99.8 percent, Quebec has two-generation advance on places like California and Ontario. Combining a reporters’ style with thought, philosophy and a touch of humour, Jean-Benoît Nadeau and Julie Barlow look into Hydro-Québec’s future – with an eye also on the past – as the public utility marks the 75th anniversary of its founding. The future is now and it is electric. It spans widely diverse fields such as big data aggregation centres, exports to the United States, acquisitions in Mexico, Chinese buses, mega-batteries, bitcoins, charging stations and much more.Between now and Hydro-Québec’s 100th anniversary, the challenges will be vast. As our habits and expectations change radically everything will be on the table, from solar panels to rates, from remote heating control to underground power lines, and from the environment to relations with the indigenous peoples.

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A fascinating study that uncovers an important aspect of the history of the American Revolution, this account reveals how the British Army that fought the American Revolutionaries was, in fact, an Anglo-German army. Arguing that the British Crown had doubts about the willingness of English soldiers to fight against other English-speaking people in North America, the book details how the task of providing troops fell upon the princes of German States, who were relatives of England’s ruling family. In return for large amounts of money, German princes and barons provided about 30,000 soldiers, many of whom were dragged unwillingly from their families and sent to fight in a war in which they had no interest. While some of the soldiers eventually melted into the French and English-speaking societies of Canada, little history has been available, not even to the descendant families. These soldiers' experiences offer new insight into the battles that took place between 1776 and 1783 and had an impact that spanned four countries.

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I hate hockey!" is the first and last sentence in this novel that offers a great take on our love-hate relationship with hockey. Narrator Antoine Vachon blames the game for killing his marriage with his beautiful ex-wife (well, that and the power outage that brought her home unexpectedly to find him in bed with her intern). But hockey is a pretext for unlikely adventure in this sardonic roman noir that at times flirts with the outrageous.Antoine Vachon is a total loser living in a pitiful bachelor apartment after he has lost his wife and his job as a car salesman. When his son’s hockey coach is found dead, he is browbeaten into coaching the team for one game. He makes it through the game (to great comic effect), but things take a turn for the worse when they stop at a motel after the game. Who killed the former coach and why? Was Antoine’s son involved? Or his ex-wife? The late coach was liked by all and was a pillar in the community. He was close to his player, perhaps too close… Why is Antoine unable to communicate with his son?

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Emile Claudel is no ordinary child. Only months after he was born, following the liberation of France in 1945, he can already speak several languages, much to his mother's frustration. Emile, nicknamed the Little Fox for his appearance, is born into a loveless home, where patience is in short supply. Abandoned by his family, he struggles to find a place in society. This deftly written coming-of-age novel follows Emile on his journey toward adulthood, as the country he was born into passes from austere conservatism to the counterculture of the 1960s.

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We're never quite sure what made Chloé take a flight to an unnamed country in South America. There she lives in self-imposed exile following a suicide attempt.This series of short vignettes provides a glimpse of Chloé’s scattered thoughts as she attempts to adjust to life in a new setting and recover from her depressive episode. Amidst the quirky observational humour of her internal monologue, a story of loneliness emerges, as she tries (for the most part, unsuccessfully) to form meaningful connections with the people she meets, and does her best to avoid, in her new surroundings.At times biting and sarcastic, at times beautiful and reflective, this debut novel takes an intimate look at depression, with a sharp and witty narrator who rides the line between self-aware and self-deprecating. A quirky, sweet story of overcoming hopelessness and finding human connection.

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In the later 19th century, French-Canadian Roman Catholic immigrants from Quebec were deemed a threat to the United States, potential terrorists in service of the Pope. Books and newspapers floated the conspiracy theory that the immigrants seeking work in New England's burgeoning textile industry were actually plotting to annex parts of the United States to a newly independent Quebec. Vermette’s groundbreaking study sets this neglected and poignant tale in the broader context of North American history. He traces individuals and families, from the textile barons who created a new industry to the poor farmers and laborers of Quebec who crowded into the mills in the post-Civil War period. Vermette discusses the murky reception these cross-border immigrants met in the USA, including dehumanizing conditions in mill towns and early-20th-century campaigns led by the Ku Klux Klan and the Eugenics movement. Vermette also discusses what occurred when the textile industry moved to the Deep South and brings the story of emigrants up to the present day. Vermette shows how this little-known episode in U.S. history prefigures events as recent as yesterday’s news. His well documented narrative touches on the issues of cross-border immigration; the Nativists fear of the Other; the rise and fall of manufacturing in the U.S.; and the construction of race and ethnicity.

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The Prophetic Anti-Gallic Letters Adam Thom and the Hidden Roots of The Dominion of Canada by Adam Thom was published in 1836 based on Thom's editorials in Montreal Herald written under the pseudonym "Camillus" in the previous two years. They were never reprinted, despite their importance and above all the people for whom Thom was the public voice, namely the executive committee of the powerful Constitutional Association of Montreal, that included the president George Moffatt as well as Peter McGill and John McCord. Thom was also co-author of the famous Durham Report. More than an anti-French, anti-Republican tract, The Anti-Gallic Letters, though generally ignored by historians, are crucial to understanding how British North America mutated into the Dominion of Canada in 1867. Erroneously characterized as a minor discord between the Melbourne cabinet in London and a select group of merchants, bankers and gentlemen of the Montreal Tory oligarchy, The Anti-Gallic Letters reveal the total disagreement among people of British culture and background in London or in Montreal on how power should be controlled in the colonies of Canada. Westminster, inspired by the 1832 Reform Bill, believed in a gradual and harmonious transfer of British parliamentary values and institutions to a majority group of a different culture, language and background, described as "The great body of people" by Governor Gosford in his 1835 Throne speech read in French. But the Montreal Tory Oligarchy, mobilized by fear and bravado, anticipated the worst, while still espousing the same British imperial world mission as Westminster. Seeing Montreal as the hub of British North America, they brandished the spectre of a British Empire dismembered by a French Republic arising in the St. Lawrence Valley or annexation of Upper and Lower Canada by the powerful American Republic. They thus considered themselves justified to threaten the use lethal force to make Downing Street change its course. Moreover, as François Deschamps shows, they succeeded: first in 1837 with the brutal repression of the Patriotes in Lower Canada and the Reformers in Upper Canada, second with the Durham Report and the Act of Union, and finally with the 1867 BNA Act creating the Dominion of Canada. Now reprinted, the Anti-Gallic Letters with Deschamps's fascinating presentation and notes provide a new but crucial point of view as Canada prepares to mark the 150th anniversary of the Dominion of Canada in 2017. The book includes a comprehensive bibliography.

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The next installment in the series, this book follows the young, 17th-century explorer Pierre-Esprit Radisson from North America to France and back, with plenty of excitement along the way.After spending two years with his new Iroquois family, Radisson escapes and sails across the Atlantic to Holland before boarding ship to head down the west coast of France. Using his wits and the skills picked up in the New World (present-day Canada), he makes his way up the Loire and arrives in Paris. But war for the succession of the king of France has razed the faubourg where he had lived with his family. So Radisson agrees to sign on with the Jesuits who are intent on evangelizing the New World. His return to the St. Lawrence Valley means assuming responsibility for his past, but also honoring his commitment to the. The New World is rife with challenge and conflict as cultures and economies collide. His mastery of the Mohawk language and knowledge of their culture make him a much-needed strategist and diplomat as plans are hatched to establish a new mission in the heart of Iroquois territory, which until recently was home to New France's mortal enemy.

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This book focuses on the lives and works of two of the very first women of European American ancestry to practice architecture in North America during the 19th century. Mother Joseph du Sacre-Coeur, a Sister of Providence - born Esther Pariseau, in St. Elzar, Quebec - is credited with works built in the present states of Washington, Idaho, Montana, northern Oregon, and in the province of British Columbia. For her contributions, Mother Joseph was honored by the State of Washington as one of two people to represent it in the National Statuary Hall Collection in Washington, DC. Louise Blanchard Bethune designed and built works in the Buffalo, New York area. Storming the Old Boys' Citadel follows the evolving histories of two Revival-styled multiuse public buildings considered to be these women's major works. Listed on the United States' National Register of Historic Places, they have both continued to function, with extensive additions and other changes made to each architect's original structure, for the communities where their architects lived. The book addresses issues of lost or hidden North American history.

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Drawing on his rich experience in public service and teaching, Jacques Parizeau, former premier of Quebec, explains in these pages how the idea of an independent Quebec first took root and evolved. This is the first book of Parizeau's political writing to be translated into English, and it provides lively commentary on the Quiet Revolution in the 1960s, on the the author's career as finance minister under Premier René Lévesque, and on his own administration in the mid-1990s. Parizeau also examines Quebec’s current economic, political, social and cultural situation and reviews options for future development.

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Recalling the full significance of the contact made between Europe and the Americas, this book shows how the encounter of two "old worlds" gave rise to a truly new world on both sides of the Atlantic. From astronomy to food, the history shows how America began transforming Europe the moment European explorers set foot on American soil. Featuring an alphabetical glossary to connect the particular to the universal, the book reveals the vast contributions the Americas and their original inhabitants made to the world.

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In this story of eco-resistance based on actual events in the heart of Canada's Nickel Range, Jake McCool, the injured hardrock miner, returns to work for the International Nickel Company (INCO) but now at its nearby Copper Cliff smelter complex. In no time, Jake finds himself embroiled in a vicious fight over health and safety and, more specifically, over the extreme levels of sulphur dioxide that poison the air in the smelter but also in the entire surrounding area. The fight takes on new dimensions as freelance reporter Foley Gilpin sparks interest at Canada's national daily Globe & Mail and as local parliamentarian Harry Wardell smells the collusion between INCO and the highest levels of Ministry of Natural Resources at Queen's Park in Toronto.

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Filled with original documents and vintage illustrations, this history chronicles the lives of the Hart family—a Jewish family who settled in predominantly Catholic Trois-Rivières, Quebec, in 1761. Following Aaron Hart and his descendants for a century, this account not only bares the Jewish struggle for equality and freedom, but also delineates the contributions made by the various family members—including the passing of the Jewish Emancipation Act in 1832 and the creation of the Hart Memorial Trophy for the National Hockey League’s Most Valuable Player. A fascinating and comprehensive read, this book breaks new ground in its examination of the Jewish experience in North America.

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In this anthology of speeches and writings since 1970, eminent Canadian thinkers, journalists, and political leaders explain how the government under Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau deceived people and denied justice in October 1970. Arguing that Trudeau violated the human rights of hundreds of individuals by imposing the War Measures Act in response to the kidnappings of British Trade Consul James Cross and Labour Minister Pierre Laporte this compilation reveals the motives behind the strained relationship between Quebec and Canada. This book includes material by Margaret Atwood, Tommy Douglas, Don Jamieson, Eric Kierans, Peter C. Newman, Brian Moore, and Desmond Morton.

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Nicole Fortin is on the cusp of realizing a long-held dream when her life takes a sudden turn. Instead of participating in the Olympic Games, she finds herself struggling to master the challenging physical demands of her job in an aerospace plant and win the confidence of her male colleagues.As her involvement in union activity deepens, she is drawn into the centre of a bitter labour battle that pits her workmates against their employer.In the midst of this escalating confrontation, incidents from Nicole’s past threaten to destroy her credibility with her coworkers and her relationship with her daughter. Workplace and family ties become tangled and stretched to the breaking point.

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Rosa Ost grows up in Notre-Dame-du-Cachalot, a tiny village at the end of the world, where two industries are king: paper and Boredom. The only daughter of Terese Ost (a fair-to-middling trade unionist and a first-rate Scrabble player), the fate that befalls Rosa is the focus of this tale of long journeys and longer lives, of impossible deaths, unwavering prophecies, and unsettling dreams as she leaves her village for Montreal on a quest to summon the westerly wind that has proved so vital to the local economy. From village gossips, tealeaf-reading exotic dancers, and Acadian red herrings to soothsaying winkles and centuries-old curses, Rosa's Very Own Personal Revolution is a delightful, boundary-pushing story about stories and the storytellers who make them—and a reminder that revolutions in Quebec aren't always quiet.

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Contracting surrogate mothers is no longer marginal. Nor is it secret. Surrogacy is growing rapidly even though no informed debate on the social impacts of its normalization has been conducted. It is even regarded as socially progressive, while those who question it are considered to be opposed to progress. The 'surrogacy process' - commissioning a woman to bear and give birth to a child and then surrender it - is vitiated by its contractual nature, be it in its so-called altruistic form (i.e., no exchange of money) or the straight-forward commercial form. It is an attack on the human dignity and equal gender rights of surrogate mothers, but also a denial of the rights of the contracted child to come, who is so often forgotten in the 'process.' Current inconsistent or contradictory legislation has led to a fait accompli approach to the question. It's being done, so let's just regulate it, say its defenders. Other countries that have followed that logic have seen an increase in both demand for surrogates and recourse to shrewd international brokers. In many cases, international simply means the surrogate mother is from a poor country with lax legislation, the commissioning parents, from rich countries. By examining the 'surrogacy process' and all its implications, Maria De Koninck reaches the conclusion that the best way forward is an international ban on surrogacy.

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Winter blankets Montreal, while a bookseller and her lover dream of Prague. As the narrator's open marriage becomes the subject of a novel, reality blurs with fiction, and she tries to reconcile the need to create with the desire for love and sex. Written in stark, spare prose, Prague is an introspective and intimate account of the making of a novel from life.

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Mathieu Poulin brings us an action comedy of a novel, starring big-budget, explosion-happy movie director Michael Bay. What if Bay were, against all odds, a misunderstood genius right up there with the likes of Plato, Sartre, and Nietzsche? What if his films were more than just Baydiocre, high-grossing box-office successes held in low esteem by most movie critics? What if Bad Boys was a film about decolonization? What if The Rock was about failing to be recognized by one's peers? If Armageddon was about a post-human future? And Pearl Harbor was a reflection on the freedom afforded an artist when striving to transform fact into fiction? Poulin takes his hypothesis and runs with it. Bayhem ensues as our leading man sets out in hot pursuit of the truth, finding more questions than answers between epic car chases and sexy love interests. Who are his real parents and why did they abandon him? Who keeps following him? Did someone intentionally try to poison him, aware of his deathly allergy to sesame? And most importantly: What is meaning?

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Quebec spoils its families, according to some, with those “long” parental leaves—a full year for mothers—well-subsidized childcare, and more. Marilyse Hamelin challenges that restrictive view. But she adds that although progress has been made compared to other places in North America, stop-gap measures are not the answer. Women deserve and expect more. And the fight for women’s rights and equality is taking place here and now, in Canada and the US, and not in some distant Third World country. Why can’t woman have it all? Why can’t the labor market and the entire infrastructure that sustains it be adapted to meet the needs of mothers—and fathers? What does that mean in practice? What are the causes of the lasting inequality between men and women? Why does our radar blank out women working at minimum wage or less? Marilyse Hamelin answers those questions and proposes solutions, bringing to bear numerous studies, statistics, and interviews.

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Before the Davie Crockets, the Daniel Boones and Jim Bridgers, the French had pushed far west and north establishing trade and kin networks across the continent. They founded settlements that would become great cities such as Detroit, Saint Louis, and New Orleans, but their history has been largely buried or relegated to local lore or confined to Quebec. In this seminal work, Foxcurran, Bouchard, and Malette Scrutinize primary sources and uncover the alliances, organic links and métissage, or mixing, between early French settlers and voyageurs and the indigenous nations. It began with the founding of New France by Samuel de Champlain in the early 1600s and continued well into the 19th century long after France was no longer a force in North America. The authors' keen and accessible story telling, combined with vintage maps, forgotten documents (such as the little known writings of Alexis de Tocqueville), and old photos or paintings propel the account of the peoples engendered and still thriving, their French lingua franca, and their ways of life back into the heart of the narrative of North American history where they belong. Songs Upon the Rivers also challenges historical orthodoxies regarding the Canadien Métis. These descendants of the French with mixed ancestry developed a hybrid culture with close kinship ties with indigenous peoples across the continent. They kept their French songs and language, which effectively made French the lingua franca of the American and Canadian West well into the 19th century.

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A strange and anonymous narrator, an unnamed village, an unsolved murder, a mysterious huntsman, and a wisdom tooth extraction gone terribly wrong. There's no shortage of intrigue in this offbeat debut novel by Jean-Michel Fortier. The "we" narrator's rambling and often ironic musings are unsettling at first, and the atmosphere vaguely claustrophobic as the tale shifts back and forth between Monday meetings at the parish hall, where villagers air their petty complaints, and their Friday gatherings shrouded in secrecy and presided over by the enigmatic Professor. A bewitching story full of dark humour and laugh-out-loud absurdity, The Unknown Huntsman is full of gossipy run-on sentences and snide remarks from the narrator. It reads like an allegory or dark adult fairy tale, and its motto could be: "If you don't want answers, don't ask questions.

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The Morrin Centre in Quebec City, built on the site of military barracks known as the Royal Redoubt, served first as a “common gaol” (public prison), then as the Morrin College, the first English-language institute of higher education in the city, and has been home to the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec for many years. The Society has hosted in its astonishing library such illustrious figures as Charles Dickens and Emmelyne Pankhurst. With incredible anecdotes, the authors guide us through the building’s two-century history and its place in the history of Quebec City, Quebec, and Canada.

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Captain Jim McFarlane, a Canadian infantry officer, is coming apart at the seams. It’s September 1944, in Italy, and the allied armies are closing in on the retreating Axis powers. Exhausted and lost, Jim tries to command his combat company under fire, while waiting desperately for letters from his wife Marianne. Joining the army not out of some admirable patriotic sentiments but rather because of his own failings and restlessness, he finds himself fighting in a war that is far from glorious. In this story of love and war, Murphy brilliantly captures our ambiguous relationship to war.

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Revealing a little-known part of North American history, this lively guide tells the fascinating tale of the settlement of the St. Lawrence Valley. It also tells of the Montreal and Quebec-based explorers and traders who traveled, mapped, and inhabited a very large part of North America, and “embrothered the peoples” they met, as Jack Kerouac wrote. Connecting everyday life to the events that emerged as historical turning points in the life of a people, this book sheds new light on Quebec's 450-year history and on the historical forces that lie behind its two recent efforts to gain independence.

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Wendake, Odanak, Wôlinak, Pointe-du-Lac, Kahnawake, Kanesatake, Akwesasne, Kitigan Zibi are communities located all along the St. Lawrence River valley and its tributaries. They have been home to descendants of the Huron-Wendat, Algonquin, Nipissing, and Iroquois nations. These First Nations have in common the fact that their ancestors were allies of the French and had converted to Christianity. Historians have ignored these nations described as 'domiciled Indians ('sauvages domiciliés') by the French administrators. Jean-Pierre Sawaya carefully studied how an alliance of such diverse 'missions' was created, developed and conducted to become The Seven Nations of Canada. How did this confederation come about? Who took part and what were their roles? The answers are mined in the massive colonial archives. Seven Fires is original research at its best, combining detailed analysis and systematic investigation, that has enabled the author to dispel the tenacious colonial myth about irrational, submissive, and fatalistic Indigenous peoples. Readers will discover forward-looking people motivated by a deep desire for independence and solidarity.

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World trade was revolutionized in the 19th Century when ships went from sail to steam. When did the first steamship cross the Atlantic? Who built it? Where? Several ships have claimed that title, but the true answer lies in Canada where steamboats were plying the rivers and lakes since the 19th century. The Paddle Steamer Royal William, built at the Campbell and Black shipyard in the Port of Quebec, steamed across the Atlantic from Pictou, Nova Scotia, to Portsmouth, England in 1833. That was the first transatlantic crossing under steam. Ships from the US and Holland have challenged her right to the title. This book shows that the PS Royal William's claim is valid.

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One US military leader has called Israel “the intelligence equivalent of five CIAs.” An Israeli cabinet minister likens his country to “the equivalent of a dozen US aircraft carriers,” while the Jerusalem Post defines Israel as the executive of a “superior Western military force that” protects “America’s interests in the region.” Arab leaders have called Israel “a club the United States uses against the Arabs,” and “a poisoned dagger implanted in the heart of the Arab nation.” Israel’s first leaders proclaimed their new state in 1948 under a portrait of Theodore Herzl, who had defined the future Jewish state as “a settler colony for European Jews in the Middle East under the military umbrella of one of the Great Powers.” The first Great Power to sponsor Herzl’s dream was Great Britain in 1917 when foreign secretary Sir Arthur Balfour promised British support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. In 1967 Israel launched a successful war against the highly popular Arab nationalist movement of Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser, the most popular Arab leader since the Prophet Mohammed. Nasser rallied the world’s oppressed to the project of throwing off the chains of colonialism and subordination to the West. He inspired leaders such as Nelson Mandela, Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, and Muammar Gaddafi. Viewing Israel as a potentially valuable asset in suppressing liberation movements, Washington poured billions into Israel’s economy and military. Since 1967, Israel has undertaken innumerable operations on Washington’s behalf, against states that reject US supremacy and economic domination. The self-appointed Jewish state has become what Zionists from Herzl to an editor of Haaretz, the liberal Israeli newspaper, have defined as a watch-dog capable of sufficiently punishing neighboring countries discourteous towards the West.Stephen Gowans challenges the specious argument that Israel controls US foreign policy, tracing the development of the self-declared Jewish state, from its conception in the ideas of Theodore Herzl, to its birth as a European colony, through its efforts to suppress regional liberation movements, to its emergence as an extension of the Pentagon, integrated into the US empire as a pro-imperialist Sparta of the Middle East.

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Born during the Great Depression, Jean-Claude Morel is an Everyman, an ordinary Montreal construction worker who has built the city with his own hands, digging its metro, creating islands, and weaving expressways through the downtown core. But the progress has come at a cost: neighbourhoods have been razed, streets wiped off the map, and the Morel family expropriated. Teeming with life, Morel uncovers a story of Montreal that has been buried under years of glitzy urban renewal and modernization. This intricately constructed literary novel is a profoundly human portrait of one man and his time, a monument to a city, and a toast to days gone by.

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This book tells the fascinating story of Montréal, Canada, from prehistoric time through the 21st century. From the Iroquoian community of Hochelaga to the bustling economic metropolis that Montréal has become, this account describes the social, economic, political, and cultural forces and trends that have driven the city’s development, shedding light on the city's French, British, and American influences. Outlining Montréal 's diverse ethnic and cultural origins and its strategic geographical position, this lively account shows how a small missionary colony founded in 1642 developed into a leading economic city and cultural centre, the thriving cosmopolitan hub of French-speaking North America.

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Challenging a prevailing attitude, this account disputes the idea that racism is no longer a factor in American life. Based on cultural and literary evidence—including Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn—it argues that, in some ways, the United States very much resembles the country of the 1850s. Not only are the representations of blacks in popular culture throwbacks to the days of minstrelsy, but politicians are also raising stereotypes reminiscent of those which fugitive slaves found it necessary to combat: that African Americans are lazy, dependent, and in need of management. Bold and direct, this book brings an important debate to the surface.

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A collection of short stories, this book features a narrative that, while unified by a dark theme, is diverse and surprisingly optimistic. The voices that recount the stories differ significantly, yet all resonate with the clarity of unmistakable truth. Avoiding the kind of graphic violence inherent in dealing with a topic like bullying, this compilation favors qualities such as courage and fortitude, sometimes displayed in the face of intimidating odds. Detailed and compassionate, it even manages to find humor as it tackles this otherwise sinister topic.

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After a man inadvertently swallows an insect, he withdraws from the human race; another feels an ape growing inside him; and a son struggles to decipher the meaning of his father's death. Visceral, surprising, and surreal, these twelve stories from David Clerson move from the charged darkness of the woods to the urban underground, while characters set a course to see out the night.Scurrying insects and luminous jellyfish reveal a predatory, ever-present world of childhood fairy tales, lurking shadows, and unrelenting fevers. Individuals are swallowed up by cities and bogs in this study of nature and humanity in all their terrifying glory. Throughout, Clerson draws-and blurs- the lines between man and beast, and life and death, all beneath an impassive, ailing sky.

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WINNER OF THE HUBERT REEVES 2021 AWARD FOR SCIENCE COMMUNICATORSIt’s a story peopled by leading figures of modern nuclear physics, bold chemists, and scientists accused of spying. The one idea driving them is to master the atom, whatever the result may be.With war raging in Europe, the Allies worried about advances being made by Germans scientists. The British wanted to get a jump ahead of Hitler and the physicists working for the Third Reich. England was too close to the enemy, so they decided to secretly establish a nuclear research laboratory in Montreal. The best scientists moved to Montreal with two goals in mind: develop an ultra-powerful bomb and find a new source of energy. What started as cooperation with the Americans instead became a race to harness the energy of the atom when Washington launched the Manhattan project.Montreal and the Bomb breathes new life into the exhilarating saga of European scientists secretly developing a strategic nuclear laboratory in the halls of the Université de Montréal. It’s a story peopled by leading figures of modern physics, bold chemists, and scientists accused of spying. The one idea driving them is to master the atom, whatever the result may be.

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It's a long way from a basement apartment in a Montreal suburb to a new life on a fictional planet, but that's the destination our unnamed narrator has set his sights on, bringing readers with him on an off-beat and often hilarious journey.Along the way, he writes poems, buys groceries at the dollar store, and earns minimum wage at a dead-end supermarket job. But not to worry - he is John McClane, he is the ghost of Obi-Wan Kenobi (with a bacteria he's never heard of), he is Justin Timberlake... Meryl Streep... a grumpy George Clooney...In between treatments for his cystic fibrosis and the constant drip-drip-drip of disappointment, he dreams of a new life on Tatouine, where he'll play Super Mario Bros and make sand angels all day. But in the meantime, he'll have to make do with daydreams. Daydreams of normality, daydreams of surreal little catastrophes, daydreams of a better life. On Tatouine.

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