Pubs, Pulpits and Prairie Fires

Elroy Deimert

History professor Paul Wessner hangs out at BJ’s Bar and Cue Club on Tuesday nights sharing his accounts of the On-to-Ottawa Trek and the Regina Riot in 1935. Due to local interest in his research, he invites Doc Savage and Matt Shaw, real-life leaders on the Trek, to deliver first-hand accounts of the Trek and the Riot. He encourages listeners to contribute when no guests are scheduled to tell their stories. The narratives broaden to the evolution of the Social Credit and CCF prairie fires… (more information)

Alternative Budgets

Budgeting as if People Mattered

John Loxley

Alternative budgets are becoming an increasingly popular form of political action both in Canada and internationally. They are a means of advancing an alternative social and economic perspective to the neo-conservative agenda of slashing social services, reducing the role of the government and cutting taxes for the rich, all in the name of “necessity.” Alternative budgets demonstrate that there really are more enlightened alternatives which are, at the same time, fiscally responsible… (more information)

Apostles of Greed

Capitalism and the Myth of the Individual in the Market

Allan Engler

”Provides a readable history of the eighteenth century origins of the ‘myth of the individual in the market,’ traces subsequent modifications of this idea, and details its contemporary revival...Like other religious relics, once removed from its ritual setting, the mythology of the individual in the market looks so tawdry and illogical one wonders how it became so potent.” - Libby Davis, Pacific Current (more information)

Bankruptcies and Bailouts

Edited by Wayne Antony, Julie Guard

Recession? Depression? Market adjustment? Billion-dollar bailouts? Just what is happening to the economy? Like the rest of the industrialized world, Canada is in the midst of an economic crisis that is cleary of global proportions. Yet, Nobel Prize winning economists failed to see it coming. This is unsurprising since, in the words of the newly humble Alan Greenspan, the crisis revealed “a flaw in the model ... that defines the way the world works.” Bankruptcies and Bailouts explains… (more information)

Big Death

Funeral Planning in the Age of Corporate Deathcare

Doug Smith

Over the last twenty years the corporate death “care” industry, has taken over Canada’s funerals and funeral planning, in preparation for the Golden Age of Death in North America, which will commence in 2016, when the first baby boomer turns seventy. In Big Death, Winnipeg writer Doug Smith shows how “Big Death” has bought up countless funeral homes, jacked up prices and maintained the facade of local ownership by not changing the name over the door. The book also… (more information)

Blowback

A Canadian History of Agent Orange and the War at Home

Chris Arsenault

The village of Enniskillen, a sleepy cluster of a few dozen houses in New Brunswick’s Queens County, has never been invaded by a foreign power. But during the 1950s to 1970s, the village was ground zero for a different kind of offensive, this one launched by the American and Canadian military against its own people with the deadly dioxin Agent Orange. Between 1956 and 1984 the Canadian military and its private subcontractors sprayed more than 1 million litres of rainbow herbicides around New… (more information)

Bringing the Food Economy Home

Local Alternatives to Global Agribusiness

Steven Gorelick, Todd Merrifield, Helena Norberg-Hodge

There has been much discussion about the quality of food being provided by global agribusiness and the serious environmental impact it produces. The benefits of fostering a local food production are often dismissed, but it would address a range of health, social and environmental problems. The authors argue if the trend of large agribusiness were thought about rather than accepted without question, then local food production would be seen as a viable means of supplementing this existing system.… (more information)

Challenges and Perils

Social Democracy in Neoliberal Times

Edited by William K. Carroll, R.S. Ratner

This book explores the problems and prospects for social democratic governance in the contemporary Canadian context. It provides an indepth case study of social democratic governance at the provincial level in Canada during the 1990s and the early part of the 21st century. The authors deal with the constraints that neoliberal globalization has imposed upon social democratic governance in Canada and elsewhere. Case studies of regimes in five Canadian provinces bring out nuances and examine differences… (more information)

Citizens or Consumers?

Social Policy in a Market Society

Edited by Wayne Antony, Dave Broad

Social policy is about citizens choosing the kind of society they want to live in. The mid-20th Century Keynesian welfare state can be seen as a citizenship package which included acceptance of intervention by the state to maintain economic growth and social stability, that meant the inclusion of many previously excluded groups in the social policy process and the institutionalization of a collective responsibility for individual welfare. But, with the ascendancy of neo-liberalism, the politics… (more information)

Energy Security and Climate Change

A Canadian Primer

Cy Gonick

Peak oil and climate change were mere hypotheses only a few years ago. This book brings together some of Canada’s and the world’s leading authorities to explore the origins of twin crises of our times and to evaluate the various solutions being advanced. What emerges is an engrossing discussion that is critical, sophisticated and plain spoken, challenging and controversial. Energy Security and Climate Change will be of interest to those seeking an introduction to the issues, as well… (more information)

Human Rights

Social Justice in the Age of the Market

Koen de Feyter

Rampant market economics has led to violations of human rights. Koen de Feyter questions how far the international human rights system provides effective protection against the adverse effects of globalization. His innovative suggestions for improving the human rights system include rethinking the states’ obligations, creating human rights responsibilities for big companies and international financial institutions and developing human rights obligations for states beyond their own national… (more information)

Invisible Giant

Cargill and Its Transnational Strategies

Brewster Kneen

Transnational corporations(TNCs) straddle the globe, largely unseen by the public. Cargill is the epitome of transnational corporation – the largest private corporation in North America, and possibly in the world, it trades in all agricultural commodities and produces and processes a great many of them. Cargill is both wealthy and influential, and there are few national economies unaffected by its activities. Et Cargill remains largely invisible to most people and accountable to no one… (more information)

Journeying Forward

Dreaming First Nations’ Independence

Patricia Monture-Angus

Activist and scholar Patricia Monture-Angus examines her own intellectual and personal colonization as a way to share ideas about what she, as a Mohawk woman, sees as the next steps on the path to finding a solution to the continued oppression of First Nations people. She is dissatisfied with the circuitous progress with which Aboriginal claims and issues are being dealt with in both Canadian courts and Canadian politics. As well, because many current day First Nations political institutions are… (more information)

Neo-Liberalism or Democracy?

Economic Strategy, Markets and Alternatives for the 21st Century

Arthur MacEwan

This book explores important alternatives to the neo-liberal ideology of free trade. MacEwan subjects some of the central tenets of modern economics to close scrutiny. He argues that current policies are delivering neither sustained economic growth nor many of the other things fundamental to people’s well-being. MacEwan argues forcefully that it is possible to construct a democratically controlled economic strategy which both delivers growth and meets everyone’s needs on a basis of equality… (more information)

Open for Business/Closed to People

Mike Harris’s Ontario

Edited by Diana Ralph, Andre Regimbald, Neree St-Amand

For anyone concerned about Mike Harris’s neo-conservative “Common Sense Revolution,” this book is a must. It chronicles Harris’s first year as premier and the emerging resistance movement. Part 1 puts the Harris “revolution” in context, exposing its underlying transnational corporate agenda and the previous right-wing U.S. and British governments on which it draws. It demonstrates how the smoke screen of populism and fiscal responsibility hides a fundamental attack… (more information)

Paradigm Shift (Second Edition)

Globalization and the Canadian State, Second Edition

Stephen McBride

Canada has always been a global nation, integrated with the international economy and having close relations with succeeding hegemonic powers. Recently, globalization was accompanied by an intellectual paradigm shift: moderate state interventionism associated with Keynesian economic theories was replaced by an economic orthodoxy that confined the state to a minimal role and trumpeted the virtue of market solutions. Paradigm Shift evaluates the globalization debate through a Canadian lens and places… (more information)

Politics on the Margins

Restructuring and the Canadian Women’s Movement

Janine Brodie

“Janine Brodie’s thoughtful and insightful analysis of the impact of international restructuring on the women’s movement asks all the right questions. Her challenge to develop new strategies in the face of the destruction of the welfare state should be taken up by feminists everywhere.” - Judy Rebick (more information)

Ralph Miliband and the Politics of the New Left

Michael Newman

Ralph Miliband (1924–94) was a key 20th-century political thinker. His books The State in Capitalist Society (Quartet) and Parliamentary Socialism (Merlin) influenced a generation of the left and provided a focus for academic debate. Miliband’s life and work were devoted to the attempt to define and apply an independent form of socialism. As a result of his published works, teaching and role in political movements, he became the most influential socialist political theorist writing… (more information)

Realizing Hope

Life Beyond Capitalism

Michael Albert

Something is profoundly wrong with capitalism. Vast inequalities of wealth and power won’t take the world to a better future. “What is the alternative?” is a question echoing all around the globe. Michael Albert has wrestled with this question for many years, and his answer regarding economics has captured the imagination of many. Participatory Economics—“Parecon” for short—Albert’s proposed economic system to replace capitalism, rejects competitive… (more information)

Risk and Trust

Including or Excluding Citizens?

Edited by

In recent years politicians, academics and social commentators have discussed and debated aspects of the “risk society.” For some, embracing a risk frame fulfils a socially productive role in that it helps identify and manage a range of harms and fears. However, as this multidisciplinary collection illustrates, peeling back the veneer of this often highly technocratic discourse reveals a series of moral judgments about the constitution of risk and its role in organizingcontemporary society… (more information)

Shrinking the State

Globalization and Public Administration

Bryan Evans, John Shields

This book provides a political economy perspective on recent changes within Canadian public administrative practice and structure, revealing the theoretical and practical underpinnings of neo-liberal public administration. It also addresses itself to the search for more democratic alternatives. This work is intended to serve as a text for courses in public administration and Canadian government and politics. The role of globalization, state fiscal crisis, economic restructuring and the ideological… (more information)

Social Torment

Atlantic Canada in the New World Order

Thom Workman

For Atlantic Canadians the much vaunted “New World Order,” with its free-trade/privitazion mantra, has been anything but good. In fact by all accounts to date, it has brought nothing but social torment for all but the very rich and very powerful. In this revealing new book, Thom Workman traces the impact that the new order has had on working people, the working poor, people on social assistance and the elderly. The impact of the new order on health care, education, the environment and… (more information)

Taxing Illusions

Taxation, Democracy and Embedded Political Theory

Phil Hansen

For several years now, the business community, politicians, the media and many academics have been actively pro-moting tax cuts as the key to successful economic development. Governments everywhere, regardless of party label, have responded with policies of tax reduction. But taxation is about more than raising revenue or shaping economic activity. Taxation helps define the nature of a political community and the values of a political culture. Through examining two Saskatchewan tax reports, one… (more information)

The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy

Yves Engler

Shortlisted for the Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-Fiction in the Quebec Writers’ Federation Literary Awards This book could change how you see Canada. Most of us believe this country’s primary role has been as peacekeeper or honest broker in difficult-to-solve disputes. But, contrary to the mythology of Canada as a force for good in the world, The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy sheds light on many dark corners: from troops that joined the British in Sudan in 1885 to gunboat diplomacy… (more information)

The Enemy of Nature (Second Edition)

The End of Capitalism or the End of the World? 2nd Edition

Joel Kovel

We live in and from nature, but the way we have evolved of doing this is about to destroy us. capitalism and its by-products—imperialism, war, neoliberal globalization, racism, poverty and the destruction of community—are all playing a part in the destruction of our ecosystem. only now are we beginning to realize the depth of the crisis and the kind of transformation that will have to occur to ensure our survival. This second, thoroughly updated, edition of The Enemy of Nature speaks… (more information)

The Power of Israel in the United States

James Petras

This book is a chapter-by-chapter analysis and documentation of the power of Israel via the Israeli, Jewish or Pro-Zionist Lobby on u.S. Middle East policy. It raises serious questions as to the primary beneficiary of u.S. policy and its destructive results for the united States. The extraordinary extent of political, economic, military and diplomatic support for the state of Israel is explored, along with the means whereby such support is generated and consolidated. Contending that Zionist power… (more information)

The State in Capitalist Society

Ralph Miliband

Almost as soon as The State in Capitalist Society was published in 1969, it was recognized as one of the most important books in political science and sociology to have appeared since the Second World War. Four decades later, and in the wake of a neoliberal era almost universally characterized in terms of the re-treat of the state, “the massive scale of state intervention today makes the re-publication of Ralph Miliband’s classic study extremely timely. Its famous opening sentences… (more information)

Thin Ice

Money, Politics and the Demise of an NHL Franchise

Jim Silver

Thousands of Winnipegers rallied on the streets while corporate businessmen fought each other behind closed doors. Information was manipulated. Arms were twisted. Politicians capitulated. Adults wept on open-line radio shows. Children broke open their piggy banks. This was the campaign to keep the NHL’s Jets from leaving Winnipeg. The book is about hockey, but it is not about The Game. It is about the business of hockey and how changes in this business are threatening the games survival in… (more information)