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History and geography

  • Auteur:
    Epp-Koop, Stefan
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    Stefan Epp-Koop’s "We’re Going to Run This City: Winnipeg’s Political Left After the General Strike" explores the dynamic political movement that came out of the largest labour protest in Canadian history and the ramifications for Winnipeg throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Few have studied the political Left at the municipal level—even though it is at this grassroots level that many people participate in political activity. Winnipeg was a deeply divided city. On one side, the conservative political descendants of the General Strike’s Citizen’s Committee of 1000 advocated for minimal government and low taxes. On the other side were the Independent Labour Party and the Communist Party of Canada, two parties rooted in the city’s working class, though often in conflict with each other. The political strength of the Left would ebb and flow throughout the 1920s and 1930s but peaked in the mid-1930s when the ILP’s John Queen became mayor and the two parties on the Left combined to hold a majority of council seats. Astonishingly, Winnipeg was governed by a mayor who had served jail time for his role in the General Strike.

  • Auteur:
    MOWAT, Farley
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    Reconstructs voyages of exploration and piracy that led to settlements on Greenland, Iceland, Newfoundland and Vinland, from 960 to 1010 A.D.

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    Theriault, Vernon
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    Dans ce livre, Theriault décrit son expérience dans la mine du comté de Pictou, ses combats personnels à la suite du désastre et la façon dont il a donné un sens nouveau à sa vie en participant à la campagne de lobbying de longue haleine du Syndicat des Métallos, qui a mené à l'adoption de la Loi Westray en 2004.

  • Auteur:
    Theriault, Vernon
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    L'explosion de méthane éventre la mine Westray, en Nouvelle-Écosse. Vingt-six mineurs y sont pris au piège. Les résidents de Plymouth retiennent leur souffle tandis que les sauveteurs partent à la recherche de survivants, bravant des conditions extrêmement dangereuses pendant des jours. Vernon Theriault, un mineur de Westray décoré pour sa bravoure, s'était joint aux équipes de sauvetage. Malheureusement, nul des vingt-six mineurs n'avait survécu à l'explosion, et seuls quinze de leurs corps auront pu être retrouvés. Westray, synonyme de la négligence des employeurs et de l'indifférence des gouvernements, est cependant devenu le cri de ralliement des syndicalistes et des familles des disparus. La tragédie a donné naissance au projet de loi Westray, une loi fédérale visant à protéger la sécurité des travailleurs, qui a fait l'objet de plusieurs campagnes de lobbying sous la bannière Plus jamais de Westray. Dans ce livre, Theriault décrit son expérience dans la mine du comté de Pictou, ses combats personnels à la suite du désastre et la façon dont il a donné un sens nouveau à sa vie en participant à la campagne de lobbying de longue haleine du Syndicat des Métallos, qui a mené à l'adoption de la Loi Westray en 2004.

  • Auteur:
    Clifford, Jim
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    West Ham and the River Lea explores the environmental and social history of London’s most populous independent suburb and its second largest river. Jim Clifford maps the migration of industry into West Ham’s marshlands and reveals the consequences for the working-class people who lived among the factories. He argues that poverty, pollution, water shortages, and disease stimulated momentum for political transformation, providing an opening for a new urban politics to emerge. This book establishes the importance of the urban environment in the development of social democracy in Greater London at the turn of the twentieth century.

  • Auteur:
    Redmond, Christopher
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    Christopher Redmond’s fascinating account of Doyle’s first trip to America has been reconstructed from newspaper accounts describing the places Doyle visited, from the Adirondacks to New York, Chicago, and Toronto. Despite the gruelling tour schedule, Doyle met dozens of the most important literary and social lights of America. Everywhere he went he was mobbed by public hungry for news of the man he had "killed off" a year earlier — Sherlock Holmes, who was front page news. In Redmond’s lively narrative, which is based on letters, newspaper reports, and other newly unearthed sources, you will discover, as Doyle himself put it, "the romance of America."

  • Auteur:
    Crowshoe, Joe
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    The generation to which Joe and Josephine Crowshoe belonged spanned more than the length of their lifetimes. That generation fought heroically in world wars and at the same time raised children under a paternalistic federal regime that denied both a culture and a heritage. The Crowshoes regained their heritage and shared it with the larger community, gaining respect from all the people with whom they were in contact and becoming articulate representatives and the holders of stories, legends, and customs. The interviews in Weasel Tail track not just their personal stories but the stories of a people who insisted on being recognized and a culture born out of the land of southern Alberta. Paralleling the interviews, Mike Ross has included historical photographs and documentation of a world and people who are a rich part of Alberta's history.

  • Auteur:
    Gourevitch, Philip
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    In 1994, the Rwanda government began killing its Tutsi minority people and 800,000 were murdered. Gourevitch details the genocide's background and aftermath.

  • Auteur:
    Jockel, Helena
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    When the Nazis invaded Hungary on March 19, 1944, elementary school teacher Helena Jockel could only think about how to save "her" children. She accompanied them all the way to Auschwitz only to see them taken to the gas chamber. Her account of living and surviving in the camp and on the subsequent death march is clear-eyed and poignant, sometimes recording the too-brief moments of beauty and kindness that accompany the unremitting cruelty. She returns to Czechoslovakia after the war, and attends university so that she can teach high school. A passionate and committed teacher, she refuses to hide her Jewishness under a Communist regime that will not allow her to talk about the Holocaust. Her students, however, find ways to learn themselves about what she experienced and Helena finds ways to teach the lessons she wants to teach through literature.

  • Auteur:
    Yakeleya Elizabeth
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    A work in progress since the 1970s, We Remember the Coming of the White Man chronicles the history of the Dene People in the extraordinary time of the early 20th century. Chapters are transcripts of oral histories of ten Elders and revolve around their recollections of the early days of fur trading, missionaries and the 1918 flu pandemic; dismay about the way oil and uranium discoveries and pipelines were handled on their land; and the emotional and economic fallout of the signing of Treaty 11. Bundled with the book is a version on DVD of Raymond Yakeleya's stunning 1978 film We Remember, with director's commentary. The book is rich with photographs, and Elders' stories are in English and Dene Gwich'in language. The audiobook, produced by Leanne Goose and read by Dene, Métis, and Inuvialuit narrators, is available (May 15, 2020). Dene First Nation Elders in the book are Joe Blondin, John Blondin, Elizabeth Yakeleya, Mary Wilson, Isadore Yukon, Peter Thompson, Jim Edwards Sittichinli, Sarah Simon, Johnny Kaye, and Andrew Kunnizzi. For more info, excerpts from the book and film clips, https://durvile.com/books/We_Remember.html

  • Auteur:
    Simon, Sarah, Yakeleya, Elizabeth
    Sommaire:

    A work in progress since the 1970s, We Remember the Coming of the White Man chronicles the history of the Sahtú (Mountain Dene) and Gwinch’in People in the extraordinary time of the early 20th century. Chapters are transcripts of oral histories by 10 Elders about their recollections of the early days of fur trading, guns, and flu pandemic; dismay about the way oil and uranium discoveries and pipelines were handled on their land; and the emotional and economic fallout of the signing of Treaty 11.

  • Auteur:
    Gayle, Caleb
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    A landmark work of untold American history that reshapes our understanding of identity, race, and belonging Why did this happen? How was the U.S. government involved? And what are Cow Tom's descendants and other Black Creeks doing to regain their citizenship? These are some of the questions that Gayle explores in this provocative examination of racial and ethnic identity. By delving into the history and interviewing Black Creeks who are fighting to have their citizenship reinstated, he lays bare the racism and greed at the heart of this story. We Refuse to Forget is an eye-opening account that challenges our preconceptions of identity as it shines new light on the long shadows of white supremacy and marginalization that continue to hamper progress for Black Americans.

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    Angus, Charlie, Griffin, Brit, Lawrence, Sally, Moir, Rob
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    Based on in-depth oral interviews with local residents, and rich archival sources, We Lived A Life and Then Some relates the common person's struggle to overcome harsh working conditions and government neglect. The unique culture of the hardrock mining town of Cobalt is exposed through the eyes of retired miners, young welfare mothers, and grade-school children. Angus and Griffin reveal why, in spite of great adversity, Cobalt remains a distinctive and cohesive working-class community.<

  • Auteur:
    Cooper, Becky
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    Forty years after the fact, Becky Cooper, a curious Harvard undergrad, first heard whispers of a murdered student, one bludgeoned to death by a professor to cover up an affair. Though that motive proved false, the story that unfolded, one that Cooper followed for ten years, is even more complex: a tale of gender inequality in academia, the silencing effect of institutions, and our compulsion to rewrite the stories of female victims.

  • Auteur:
    O'Toole, Fintan
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    In We Don't Know Ourselves, Fintan O'Toole weaves his own experiences into Irish social, cultural, and economic change, showing how Ireland, in just one lifetime, has gone from a reactionary "backwater" to an almost totally open society-perhaps the most astonishing national transformation in modern history. Born to a working-class family in the Dublin suburbs, O'Toole served as an altar boy and attended a Christian Brothers school. He was enthralled by American Westerns suddenly appearing on Irish television, which were not that far from his own experience, given that Ireland's main export was beef and it was still not unknown for herds of cattle to clatter down Dublin's streets. Yet the Westerns were a sign of what was to come. O'Toole narrates the once unthinkable collapse of the all-powerful Catholic Church, brought down by scandal and by the activism of ordinary Irish, women in particular. He relates the horrific violence of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, which led most Irish to reject violent nationalism. In O'Toole's telling, America became a lodestar, from John F. Kennedy's 1963 visit, when the American president was welcomed as a native son, to the emergence of the Irish technology sector in the late 1990s, driven by American corporations, which set Ireland on the path toward particular disaster during the 2008 financial crisis.

  • Auteur:
    Kacer, Kathy
    Sommaire:

    Do young people today find meaning in the Holocaust? That’s the question that prompted a writing project across North America, Italy, and Australia asking young people to share their ideas about this time in history. Some students wrote short stories. Some discussed the impact of books they had read and wrote about the messages that they understood from these books. Several interviewed survivors and recorded their impressions. Many talked about how they have tried to make sense of this history in the world in which they now live. Others created works of art. Children wrote from their hearts with sensitivity, thoughtfulness, and great insight. Their teachers saw this opportunity as a gift, and it proves to all that young people can make a meaningful connection to the Holocaust. Their contributions give hope for a more peaceful and tolerant future.

  • Auteur:
    Budgell, Anne
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    The book is an account of how the Spanish flu pandemic affected several communities in Labrador. Although several populations were nearly wiped out, the Innu people of Labrador are barely present in the written record, and when included, their experience is often misunderstood. Budgell has scoured diaries, letters, medical records, shipping logs, and first-hand accounts of the period to redress this exclusion and shed light on the tragic loss of life that occurred 100 years ago.

  • Auteur:
    Fremont-Barnes, Gregory
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    The Battle of Waterloo is one of the most important moments in military history. The might of the French Empire under the leadership of the Emperor Napoleon faced the Coalition army under Duke of Wellington and Gerhard von Blucher for one last time at Waterloo. The battle saw the culmination of a long campaign to destroy Napoleon’s forces and halt the growth of the French Empire. Both sides fought bitterly, and Wellington later remarked that “it was the nearest-run thing you ever saw in your life.” Both armies lost over 20,000 men on the battlefield that day, but it was the coalition that emerged victorious in the end. Wellington’s army counter-attacked and threw the French troops into disarray as the fled from the field. The coalition forces entered France and restored Louis XVIII to the throne. Napoleon was exiled to the island of Saint Helena, where he later died. Waterloo was a resounding victory for the British Army and changed the course of European history. This Battle Story tells you everything you need to know about this critical battle.

  • Auteur:
    McKean, David
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    As German tanks rolled toward Paris in late May 1940, the US Ambassador to France, William Bullitt, was determined to stay put, holed up in the Chateau St. Firmin in Chantilly, his country residence. Bullitt told the president that he would neither evacuate the embassy nor his chateau. As German forces closed in on the French capital, Bullitt wrote the president, "In case I should get blown up before I see you again, I want you to know that it has been marvelous to work for you." As the fighting raged in France, across the English Channel, Ambassador to Great Britain Joseph P. Kennedy wrote to his wife Rose, "The situation is more than critical. It means a terrible finish for the allies." David McKean's Watching Darkness Fall will recount the rise of the Third Reich in Germany and the road to war from the perspective of four American diplomats in Europe who witnessed it firsthand: Joseph Kennedy, William Dodd, Breckinridge Long, and William Bullitt, who all served in key Western European capitals-London, Berlin, Rome, Paris, and Moscow-in the years prior to World War II. In many ways they were America's first line of defense and they often communicated with the president directly, as Roosevelt's eyes and ears on the ground. Unfortunately, most of them underestimated the power and resolve of Adolf Hitler and Germany's Third Reich.

  • Auteur:
    O'Donnell, Patrick K.
    Sommaire:

    In August 1776, George Washington found his troops outmanned at the Battle of Brooklyn. But thanks to a single heroic regiment, he was able to evacuate his men. Bestselling historian Patrick K. O'Donnell brings to life the forgotten story of this remarkable band of brothers.

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