Glasstry news

War is over at Canada's History  The October-November issue weighs the context and consequences of the First World War 1914-18 to mark the centenary of its ending on 11 November 1918. Tim Cook considers the war's legacies.  Ian Coutts looks at the life and death of the ill-fated George Price, the last Canadian soldier killed. Marianne Helm reports on a project that takes all those black-and-white images of the war and colourizes them  ( see separate post ). Kristine Alexander and Ashley Henrickson consider the children of that war. And John Lorinc reintroduces us to war's deadly aftermath, the great flu epidemic of 1918-19.  Plus an array of sidebars by magazine staff:  tactics, shell-shock, propaganda, heroism, entertainment. Genealogist Paul Jones suggests accessible sources for personal histories of the war.  My own column reflects on the commemoration of the war in Canada the last four years and wonders if we are now beginning to let that war slide into...

Handsome new issue of Canada's History in my mailbox yesterday. Editor Mark Reid leads with a photo essay on the treasures of Canada's museums: from a bison amulet of unknown age to Dilly Moffatt's hockey stick from the 1830s, from the assassin Patrick Whelan's revolver to Louis Riel's ceinture flech�. Plus an essay on the 1930s dust bowl from Bill Waiser (something of a national treasure himself). And a powerful piece on Canadians' historic ambivalence about immigrants by George Melnyk, himself a child of refugees  (Yeah, him too.). My own column this month is a reflection on R. v Comeau , the "free" beer case in which the role of history and historians in making law (including an affidavit of mine) came to the fore at the Supreme Court of Canada. If you subscribed like you oughta , you'd have it already. Meanwhile, find a newsstand if you can. Update, August 1:   Re George Melnyk's article, Helen Webberley responds from Australia: It is fasc...

Cover story at Canada's History this month features Marilyn Dickson on Eileen Vollick, first woman to earn a pilot's licence in Canada: "I have never been afraid to go after anything I wanted and to stay until I got it," she wrote, so, "one day I ventured into the proprietor's den and asked him, 'Can a girl learn to fly?'" Also, Ray Argyle on Solomon Sanderson, the Cree chief who created the term "First Nations" -- in 1980. Cynthia Levine-Rasky on the Roma in Canada. And Peter Blow on a Canadian freedom fighter executed by the Spanish in 19th century Cuba. And much more. For my own column, I talked to Ian Milligan about Big Data and historians' plans to gain access to and control of what is being called "the infinite archives" -- the vast amounts of historical source material that lives online and only online.  Subscribe!

Gettin' topical in the February-March  Canada's History . The possible death of NAFTA provoked my column "Passing the Bucks."  Based on a reading of Smart Globalization and a conversation with one of its editor-contributors, Dimitry Anastakis (Andrew Smith being the other), the column considers whether the era of "hyperglobalization" we have seen in recent decades may be collapsing under its own weight. A spectacular cover (I'd show it, but it ain't up at the website yet), "Vinland Vikings: the Mysterious Norse Settlement Found," leads to a sober and persuasive essay about Norse visits to the Gulf of St. Lawrence region, contributed by Birgitta Wallace, the fruit of a lifetime's scholarship on the subject. Plus Second World War letters, praise for Saskatoon, polio in the Arctic. And much more, including (why have a blog if you cannot plug your friends once in a while?) an enthusiastic review of Anne McDonald's Miss Confederation ,...