History

★ Villa Air-Bel: World War II, Escape, and a House in Marseille

On September 3, 1939, at 5 p.m., France officially entered the Second World War. The clubs and theatres shut down. Those who could fled. Civil defence called for a “blue-out” in Paris.Paris fell in May ... Read More »

October 23, 2006 | Filed under: History

The Hanging of Angelique: The Untold Story of Canadian Slavery and the Burning of Old Montreal

By Afua Cooper

Afua Cooper, a professor of history at the University of Toronto, makes what seems to be an unfounded claim in the subtitle of her new book. The story of Marie-Joseph Angelique, a black slave who ... Read More »

October 17, 2006 | Filed under: History

Cinderella Army: The Canadians in Northwest Europe 1944–1945

By Terry Copp

First Canadian Army, known as the Cinderella Army, was the smallest of the Allied armies that fought the final nine months of the Second World War in Northwest Europe. The moniker derives from its role ... Read More »

October 3, 2006 | Filed under: History

Fertility Goddesses, Groundhog Bellies & the Coca Cola Company: The Origins of Modern Holidays

By Gabriella Kalapos

Most of us don’t have the time or the inclination to learn the historical roots of our holidays. A day off from the modern, cubicle-infested workplace is its own explanation and justification. Gabriella Kalapos has ... Read More »

July 17, 2006 | Filed under: History

★ The Master Plan: Himmler’s Scholars and the Holocaust

By Heather Pringle

The Nazi Holocaust remains the nadir of human activity on this planet, a Dead Sea of unthinking bestiality and unmitigated evil. Why is it unlike all the other monstrous flowerings of evil that ought to ... Read More »

June 5, 2006 | Filed under: History

Return to Akenfield: Portrait of an English Village in the 21st Century

By Craig Taylor

The cult of pastoral life has long been part of the English identity. Ronald Blythe’s 1969 book Akenfield – a kind of lyrical ethnography of a Suffolk village, told in the voices of the villagers ... Read More »

May 30, 2006 | Filed under: History

The Bloody Red Hand: A Journey Through Truth, Myth and Terror in Northern Ireland

By Derek Lundy

It’s not surprising that Derek Lundy chose to start his new book with a scene set at sea – the Salt Spring Island writer has done well with his previous, nautically themed books. The opening ... Read More »

May 1, 2006 | Filed under: History

A Race for Real Sailors: The Bluenose and the International Fishermen’s Cup, 1920-1938

By Keith McLaren

Is there anyone in Canada who doesn’t know that the Bluenose schooner is on the back of the Canadian dime? If there is, B.C. author Keith McLaren tells them this fat three or four times ... Read More »

March 6, 2006 | Filed under: History

Bodies and Souls: The Tragic Plight of Three Jewish Women Forced into Prostitution in the Americas

By Isabel Vincent

In Bodies and Souls, seasoned investigative journalist Isabel Vincent turns her attention to an apparently forgotten yet utterly notorious episode in history: the Jewish slave trade that forced thousands of young women out of Eastern ... Read More »

January 12, 2006 | Filed under: History

How the Cold War Began: The Gouzenko Affair and the Hunt for Soviet Spies

By Amy Knight

For those who persist in thinking that it was only the U.S. government of the 1950s that was hysterical and paranoid and abused the civil rights of its citizens in pursuit of communists, Amy Knight’s ... Read More »

January 11, 2006 | Filed under: History

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