Book Review |

A labour of love from a lover of labour

A Worker’s Friend Peter Marcus 2019 Granville Island Publishing “Poetry is a reflection of the society in which we live and its past and its political future,” writes Peter Marcus in the introduction to his book of poetry, A Worker’s [...]

From smallpox to COVID-19 – epidemics and Indigenous peoples

Clearing the Plains: Disease, Politics of Starvation and the Loss of Aboriginal Life (2013) Author: James Daschuk Publisher: University of Regina Press Review by Kimball Cariou What economic system extends its reach across entire [...]

Breaking down anti-Communist caricatures, book reveals a man who grasped the nature of world-wide class struggle

Norman Bethune in Spain: Commitment, Crisis and Conspiracy (2013) Author: David Lethbridge Publisher: Sussex Academic Press Few figures in Canadian history remain as popular as Norman Bethune. This despite a plethora of books, films and [...]

A passionate and entertaining account of GDR socialism

A Socialist Defector: from Harvard to Karl-Marx-Allee Author: Victor Grossman Publisher: Monthly Review Press, 2019 Thirty one years ago the Berlin Wall came down and the working class in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), or East [...]

Michael Palin: From Monty Python to Pyongyang

North Korea Journal (2019) Michael Palin Many readers might know Michael Palin as part of the Monty Python comedy troupe. His comedic antics were hilarious, and his work has been shown around the world. In later years he also became a [...]

“Hot-house flower” from the muck of brutal racism

Jazz and Justice: Racism and the Political Economy of the Music, by Gerald Horne (Monthly Review Press, 2019). 456 pages Historian Gerald Horne, Chair of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston, is a prolific author and [...]

Winnipeg General Strike pops off the page

1919: A Graphic History of the Winnipeg General Strike, by the Graphic History Collective and David Lester, published by Between the Lines, 2019, 107 pages, ISBN 978-1-77113-4209-0 (softcover). Review by Kimball Cariou "A picture is worth a [...]

Gender and wealth: a feminist viewpoint

The Sex Factor: How Women Made the West Rich, by Victoria Bateman, 243 pp., 2019, Polity Press. Review by Kimball Cariou. British economist and activist Victoria Bateman is known for unorthodox tactics to get her point across at staid [...]

A MUST-READ WITH ONE UNFORTUNATE FLAW

Outside In, A Political Memoir, by Libby Davies, published by Between The Lines, 320 pages. When the realization hit a few years ago that a big shake-up was inevitable at Vancouver City Hall, the conversation among progressives turned to the big [...]

Site C Dam: Expensive in Many Ways

Damming the Peace delivers a devastating critique of the Site C project and tells us why the project should be cancelled.