BiblioVault - Books about Canada

Geographical Identities Of Ethnic America

Race, Space, And Place

Kate A. Berry

University of Nevada Press, 2001

Twenty distinguished geographers examine the ways in which place fashions, recreates, and contextualizes human identity in North America. This volume discusses themes of population and habitat, displacement and circulation, resources and economic survival, through the experiences of several ethnic minorities. It covers such topics as Samoan communities in urban Southern California, South Asian migration to Canada, Native American health-care systems, and public housing for African Americans. Supported by statistical tables and graphs, maps, and photos that reflect a wide range of theoretical and historical approaches, the essays examine such topics as immigration, housing, and landscapes, complemented with discussions of religious ceremonies, women and marriage-mate selection, resource conflicts, health care, and social networking.

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George Dixon

The Short Life of Boxing's First Black World Champion, 1870–1908

Jason Winders

University of Arkansas Press, 2021

Winner, 2022 NASSH Book Award (Monograph)

On September 6, 1892, a diminutive Black prizefighter brutally dispatched an overmatched white hope in the New Orleans Carnival of Champions boxing tournament. That victory sparked celebrations across Black communities nationwide but fostered unease among sporting fans and officials, delaying public acceptance of mixed-race fighting for half a century. This turn echoed the nation’s disintegrating relations between whites and Blacks and foreshadowed America’s embrace of racial segregation.

In this work of sporting and social history we have a biography of Canadian-born, Boston-raised boxer George Dixon (1870–1908), the first Black world champion of any sport and the first Black world boxing champion in any division. George Dixon: The Short Life of Boxing’s First Black World Champion, 1870–1908 chronicles the life of the most consequential Black athlete of the nineteenth century and details for the first time his Carnival appearance, perhaps the most significant bout involving a Black fighter until Jack Johnson began his reign in 1908. Yet despite his triumphs, Dixon has been lost to history, overshadowed by Black athletes whose activism against white supremacy far exceeded his own.

George Dixon reveals the story of a man trapped between the white world he served and the Black world that worshipped him. By ceding control to a manipulative white promoter, Dixon was steered through the white power structure of Gilded Age prizefighting, becoming world famous and one of North America’s richest Black men. Unable to hold on to his wealth, however, and battered by his vices, a depleted Dixon was abandoned by his white supporters just as the rising tide of Jim Crow limited both his prospects and the freedom of Blacks nationwide.

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Gifts from Amin

Ugandan Asian Refugees in Canada

Shezan Muhammedi

University of Manitoba Press, 2022

The Government Taketh Away

The Politics of Pain in the United States and Canada

Leslie A. Pal and R. Kent Weaver, Editors

Georgetown University Press, 2003

Democratic government is about making choices. Sometimes those choices involve the distribution of benefits. At other times they involve the imposition of some type of loss—a program cut, increased taxes, or new regulatory standards. Citizens will resist such impositions if they can, or will try to punish governments at election time. The dynamics of loss imposition are therefore a universal—if unpleasant—element of democratic governance. The Government Taketh Away examines the repercussions of unpopular government decisions in Canada and the United States, the two great democratic nations of North America.

Pal, Weaver, and their contributors compare the capacities of the U.S. presidential system and the Canadian Westminster system to impose different types of losses: symbolic losses (gun control and abortion), geographically concentrated losses (military base closings and nuclear waste disposal), geographically dispersed losses (cuts to pensions and to health care), and losses imposed on business (telecommunications deregulation and tobacco control). Theory holds that Westminster-style systems should, all things being equal, have a comparative advantage in loss imposition because they concentrate power and authority, though this can make it easier to pin blame on politicians too. The empirical findings of the cases in this book paint a more complex picture. Westminster systems do appear to have some robust abilities to impose losses, and US institutions provide more opportunities for loss-avoiders to resist government policy in some sectors. But in most sectors, outcomes in the two countries are strikingly similar.

The Government Taketh Away is essential for the scholar and students of public policy or comparative policy. It is also an important book for the average citizen who wants to know more about the complexities of living in a democratic society where the government can give-but how it can also, sometimes painfully, "taketh away."

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A Great Restlessness

The Life and Politics of Dorise Nielsen

Faith Johnston

University of Manitoba Press, 2006

Dorise Nielsen was a pioneering feminist, a radical politician, the first Communist elected to Canadaís House of Commons, and the only woman elected in 1940. But despite her remarkable career, until now little has been known about her.From her youth in London during World War I to her burial in 1980 in a heroís cemetery in China, Nielsen lived through tumultuous times. Struggling through the Great Depression as a homesteaderís wife in rural Saskatchewan, Nielsen rebelled against the poverty and injustice that surrounded her, and found like-minded activists in the CCF and the Communist Party of Canada. In 1940 when leaders of the Communist Party were either interned or underground, Nielsen became their voice in Parliament. But her activism came at a high price. As a single mother in Ottawa, she sacrificed a close relationship with her family for her career. As a woman in an emerging political organisation, her authority was increasingly usurped by younger male party members. As a committed communist, she moved to Mao's China in 1957 and dedicated her lifeís work to a cause that went seriously awry.Faith Johnston illuminates the life of a woman who paved the way for a generation of women in politics, who tried to be both a good mother and a good revolutionary, and who refused to give up on either.

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The Grizzlies Migrate to Memphis

From Vancouver Failure to Southern Success

Lukasz Muniowski

University of Tennessee Press, 2023

Following the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona and the success and celebrity of the Dream Team, the NBA became a global sensation. Around the same time, and despite ardent warnings from his parents, Arthur Griffiths purchased an NBA team that would become the expansion Vancouver Grizzlies. Who better to restore the Dream City, he thought, than the NBA?

Expansion franchises went to Vancouver and Toronto—the Canadian cities of choice as the NBA grew its international brand. But while Toronto thrived under the rising star of Vince Carter, Vancouver floundered under serial mismanagement. Six seasons wasted, the Grizzlies relocated to Memphis, where they clawed their way to victories both on the court and in the hearts of the city’s eager fanbase. More than two decades later, the Memphis Grizzlies continue to win, claiming NBA records for defeating, as an eight-seed club, the one-seed San Antonio Spurs in the 2011 playoffs (only the fourth franchise to have done so) and for defeating, in 2021, the Oklahoma City Thunder 152–73, the largest margin of victory in NBA history.

So why did the NBA fail in Vancouver but thrive in Memphis? This is the question Łukasz Muniowski seeks to answer in The Grizzlies Migrate to Memphis: From Vancouver Failure to Southern Success. In his pursuit, he explores how the Vancouver Grizzlies came to be, the team’s evolution and eventual relocation to Memphis, the success the Grizzlies found there, and the differences between the two phases of this NBA franchise.

Rooted strongly in media coverage of the Grizzlies franchise in both Vancouver and Memphis, The Grizzlies Migrate to Memphis offers a thoughtful blend of storytelling and analysis that will interest scholars and NBA enthusiasts alike.

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Grounded Authority

The Algonquins of Barriere Lake against the State

Shiri Pasternak

University of Minnesota Press, 2017

Western Political Science Association's Clay Morgan Award for Best Book in Environmental Political Theory
Canadian Studies Network Prize for the Best Book in Canadian Studies
Nominated for Best First Book Award at NAISA
Honorable Mention: Association for Political and Legal Anthropology Book Prize

Since Justin Trudeau’s election in 2015, Canada has been hailed internationally as embarking on a truly progressive, post-postcolonial era—including an improved relationship between the state and its Indigenous peoples. Shiri Pasternak corrects this misconception, showing that colonialism is very much alive in Canada. From the perspective of Indigenous law and jurisdiction, she tells the story of the Algonquins of Barriere Lake, in western Quebec, and their tireless resistance to federal land claims policy.

Grounded Authority chronicles the band’s ongoing attempts to restore full governance over its lands and natural resources through an agreement signed by settler governments almost three decades ago—an agreement the state refuses to fully implement. Pasternak argues that the state’s aversion to recognizing Algonquin jurisdiction stems from its goal of perfecting its sovereignty by replacing the inherent jurisdiction of Indigenous peoples with its own, delegated authority. From police brutality and fabricated sexual abuse cases to an intervention into and overthrow of a customary government, Pasternak provides a compelling, richly detailed account of rarely documented coercive mechanisms employed to force Indigenous communities into compliance with federal policy.

A rigorous account of the incredible struggle fought by the Algonquins to maintain responsibility over their territory, Grounded Authority provides a powerful alternative model to one nation’s land claims policy and a vital contribution to current debates in the study of colonialism and Indigenous peoples in North America and globally.

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Growing Resistance

Canadian Farmers and the Politics of Genetically-Modified Wheat

Emily Eaton

University of Manitoba Press, 2013

Guitar Makers

The Endurance of Artisanal Values in North America

Kathryn Marie Dudley

University of Chicago Press, 2014

It whispers, it sings, it rocks, and it howls. It expresses the voice of the folk—the open road, freedom, protest and rebellion, youth and love. It is the acoustic guitar. And over the last five decades it has become a quintessential American icon. Because this musical instrument is significant to so many—in ways that are emotional, cultural, and economic—guitar making has experienced a renaissance in North America, both as a popular hobby and, for some, a way of life.

In Guitar Makers, Kathryn Marie Dudley introduces us to builders of artisanal guitars, their place in the art world, and the specialized knowledge they’ve developed. Drawing on in-depth interviews with members of the lutherie community, she finds that guitar making is a social movement with political implications. Guitars are not simply made—they are born. Artisans listen to their wood, respond to its liveliness, and strive to endow each instrument with an unforgettable tone. Although professional luthiers work within a market society, Dudley observes that their overriding sentiment is passion and love of the craft. Guitar makers are not aiming for quick turnover or the low-cost reproduction of commodities but the creation of singular instruments with unique qualities, and face-to-face transactions between makers, buyers, and dealers are commonplace.

In an era when technological change has pushed skilled artisanship to the margins of the global economy, and in the midst of a capitalist system that places a premium on ever faster and more efficient modes of commerce, Dudley shows us how artisanal guitar makers have carved out a unique world that operates on alternative, more humane, and ecologically sustainable terms.

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