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Product Description
From Amazon
The book, a handsome and lavishly illustrated volume with text by journalists Don Gillmor and Pierre Turgeon, has many of the strengths of the show. Archival illustrations, including sketches and photographs, are the book's most valuable feature and complement the live enactments of the show. Later chapters effectively use first-person and anecdotal material to keep the narrative engaging. But the quick cuts and abrupt segues so effective on TV are just confusing on the page, and many of the sidebars provided with the visual material either duplicate or contradict the main body of the text.
Despite the claim of the title, this is not a "people's history." The details may be vivid, as in the Macdonald anecdote above, but they remain focused on the "great men" who have been history's traditional subject. Before the mid-19th century, when this first volume ends, there was no universal education. Almost anyone who became literate was by definition a member of the middle or upper class, so the first-person narratives here and in the show reflect the viewpoint of the European elite who presided over the settlement of northern North America. Canada: A People's History remains deeply conventional despite its nods to Native peoples, blacks, and other apparently marginal characters. Disappointingly, it fails to demonstrate the fact that there is more to history than battles, truces, constitutional conferences, and great men, drunk or sober. --Robyn Adams Gillam --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Book Description
This richly illustrated book, the first of two volumes, tells the epic story of Canada from its earliest days to the arrival of the industrial age in the 1870s. Here is the story of the people who created this vast nation. The courageous explorers who tracked the vast wilderness; the adventurous settlers, many of them exiles from their homelands; the native peoples, crucial allies in the Europeans’ wars for possession of this land; the visionary politicians, and the shortsighted ones; but most of all the ordinary people who rose to the extraordinary challenge of building Canada. These people are all given voice here, their stories blending with accounts of the major events of the day.
This is the story of Canada for the new millennium, one that draws on solid scholarship and presents the human drama and excitement of days gone by, one that makes past times memorable.
From the Hardcover edition.
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Most helpful customer reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Hmmmm,
By Pepi "popper-pete" (Toronto, Canada) - See all my reviews
Ce commentaire est de: Canada: A People's History, Vol. 1 (Hardcover)
Hmmmm, well, a comme-çi-comme-ça kind of book. A lot of good stuff here, but also a lot of stuff missing. Yes, the book was done by a committee, which doesn't help. But it's surprisingly good for a book done by committee, but that doesn't mean it's a surprisingly good book, because, unfortunately, it isn't. It's an OK book, which is too bad, since it would be really nice to have a Canadian history book which not only was easy to read, but provided good history. It's drawbacks? It's biggest drawback — remember, this is supposed to be a history book — is it's lack of maps. The maps provided are few and far between, and even those provided are small and pathetic. All good history books need maps. From Francis Parkman to Fred Anderson (Crucible of War), they all have plenty of good, detailed maps. Secondly, for a book billed as "A book for every Canadian home", it is way over-priced. Sixty bucks?! Give me a break. Thirdly, from an editorial point of view, there are many holes. Just to mention one, the book mentions the corruption of the English officials in the early nineteenth century which basically, led to the impetus for confederation (although the example provided by the U.S. is given way too short shrift), and then glosses over the corruption that was running rampant among the ‘fathers' of Canadian confederation. The sad reality is that the corrupt English officials were replaced by corrupt Canadian politicians, and this tradition has continued down to this day. But it's probably expecting too much from a book produced by the CBC to highlight this fact. [what happened to louis riel?] It's good points? Fairly good organization of events, although there is some disconcerting jumping around from time to time. As a summary, it's a decent summary for the time period covered (basically, the three hundred years up to and including confederation). Good side-bars throughout the book as well, and good and plentiful pictures/illustrations. In the end, I guess the book gets three out of five stars. But if the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corp.) is prepared to put it's money where it's mouth is, and provide a real book for ALL Canadian homes, they've got to do two things. First, produce a paperback edition that sells for $...(Canadian $, please, as Canadians only get paid in Canadian dollars) or less. Secondly, the number and size of the maps has to be quadrupled. Without better maps, all you really have is a coffee-table book. If you want a real history book, add bigger, better, and more maps. There's a challenge for, you, CBC!
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
3.0 out of 5 stars (1 customer review) 10 of 16 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Hmmmm,
By Pepi "popper-pete" - Published on Amazon.com
Ce commentaire est de: Canada: A People's History, Vol. 1 (Hardcover)
Hmmmm, well, a comme-çi-comme-ça kind of book. A lot of good stuff here, but also a lot of stuff missing. Yes, the book was done by a committee, which doesn't help. But it's surprisingly good for a book done by committee, but that doesn't mean it's a surprisingly good book, because, unfortunately, it isn't. It's an OK book, which is too bad, since it would be really nice to have a Canadian history book which not only was easy to read, but provided good history. It's drawbacks? It's biggest drawback — remember, this is supposed to be a history book — is it's lack of maps. The maps provided are few and far between, and even those provided are small and pathetic. All good history books need maps. From Francis Parkman to Fred Anderson (Crucible of War), they all have plenty of good, detailed maps. Secondly, for a book billed as "A book for every Canadian home", it is way over-priced. Sixty bucks?! Give me a break. Thirdly, from an editorial point of view, there are many holes. Just to mention one, the book mentions the corruption of the English officials in the early nineteenth century which basically, led to the impetus for confederation (although the example provided by the U.S. is given way too short shrift), and then glosses over the corruption that was running rampant among the ‘fathers' of Canadian confederation. The sad reality is that the corrupt English officials were replaced by corrupt Canadian politicians, and this tradition has continued down to this day. But it's probably expecting too much from a book produced by the CBC to highlight this fact. [what happened to louis riel?] It's good points? Fairly good organization of events, although there is some disconcerting jumping around from time to time. As a summary, it's a decent summary for the time period covered (basically, the three hundred years up to and including confederation). Good side-bars throughout the book as well, and good and plentiful pictures/illustrations. In the end, I guess the book gets three out of five stars. But if the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corp.) is prepared to put it's money where it's mouth is, and provide a real book for ALL Canadian homes, they've got to do two things. First, produce a paperback edition that sells for $...(Canadian $, please, as Canadians only get paid in Canadian dollars) or less. Secondly, the number and size of the maps has to be quadrupled. Without better maps, all you really have is a coffee-table book. If you want a real history book, add bigger, better, and more maps. There's a challenge for, you, CBC! |
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