Book Review: James Daschuk’s much-heralded Clearing the Plains is an intricate and well-crafted examination of the historical role of food and disease in the life of First Nations of Western Canada. In a strong first chapter, Daschuk dispenses notions that indigenous sickness and starvation were “new” while gesturing to food security and political autonomy as reasons why these communities flourished for centuries before European contact.
Archivist Maureen Nevins and Canada’s History editor-in-chief Mark Reid listen to two recordings that both feature displays of virtuosic talent on two very different stringed instruments: the banjo and the violin.
Book Review: Unless you are an accountant or a corporate lawyer, a history of Canadian tax policy will not be at the top of your reading list. But here are two books that show how a topic’s importance should rank ahead of its popularity — and it helps that both books are very entertaining.
Book Review: Heaman is based at McGill University and begins her book with wry comments on how tax history must seem “the most boring work imaginable.”
Fiction Feature: Maybe you have a board in your basement or in your family’s cabin. Or maybe you’ve never heard of the game invented in Ontario nearly 150 years ago: crokinole.
