The Literary Review of Canada

From the Editor

For a country raised on the mother’s milk of peace, order and good government, it’s amazing how robust and abundant Canada’s criminal industry has always been. In our January/February 2010 issue, criminologist Stephen Schneider traces organized crime’s development in this country, from the pirates and privateers of our earliest days to highwaymen and cattle-rustlers in the 19th century and on through the murky waters of counterfeiting, smuggling, drug production and human trafficking.

The meteoric rise of China and India among world economies has prompted Canadian economist Wendy Dobson to write Gravity Shift: How Asia’s New Economic Powerhouses Will Shape the Twenty-First Century, in which she predicts a largely cooperative future between the two emerging powers and the United States. Our reviewer, Jonathan Holslag of the Brussels Institute of Contemporary China Studies, begs to differ.

The controversial Swiss-born Muslim theologian Tariq Ramadan attracts praise both in the West and throughout the Muslim world for his tolerant, democratic philosophy – which some suspect masks a sinister fundamentalist agenda. In this month’s LRC, philosopher Charles Blattberg accounts for these radically split opinions, reviewing a sympathetic new portrait of Ramadan’s ideas by leading Roman Catholic theologian Gregory Baum.

The Winter Olympics are almost upon us: a brilliant event for the world’s top athletes, but a somewhat tarnished one for those who care about Canada’s adherence to democratic values and Charter rights. Are “enjoyment of the Games” and “the right to protest” entirely mutually exclusive? VANOC and the IOC appear to think so, while sports essayist Laura Robinson emphatically does not.

Stimulating winter reading from the LRC!

Bronwyn Drainie

In this Issue

• A Shameful Track Record

  An essay

  By Laura Robinson

• Blind Oracles

  A review of Florin Diacu's Megadisasters: The Science of Predicting the Next Catastrophe

  By David Orrell

• Troubling Tactics

  A review of Michael R. Marrus's Some Measure of Justice: The Holocaust Era Restitution Campaign of the 1990s

  By Norm Ravvin

• A Pragmatic Manifesto

  A review of Jean-François Lisée's Pour une gauche efficace

  By Andrew Gibson

• Our Healthiest Industry?

  An essay

  By Stephen Schneider

• The Myth of Chindia

  A review of Wendy Dobson's Gravity Shift: How Asia’s New Economic Powerhouses Will Shape the Twenty-First Century

  By Jonathan Holslag

• The Real Tariq Ramadan

  A review of The Theology of Tariq Ramadan: A Catholic Perspective, by Gregory Baum

  By Charles Blattberg

• Blaze of Glory

  A review of Off the Chain: An Insider's History of Snowboarding, by Ross Rebagliati

  By Kevin Sylvester

• Navigating Imperial Rivers

  A review of Mohawks on the Nile: Natives among the Canadian Voyageurs in Egypt, 1884-1885, by Carl Benn

  By Desmond Morton

• Quebec's Abstract Radicals

  A review of The Automatiste Revolution: Montreal, 1941-1960, by Roald Nasgaard and Ray Ellenwood

  By Patricia Smart

• Big Mistake

  A poem

  By Barry Dempster

• Wintering Bonsai

  A poem

  By Dale Matthews

• Winter Oaks

  A poem

  By Daniel Cowper

• Loving the Pyromaniac

  A poem

  By Louise Fabiani

• A Woman Who Prevails

  A review of Euphoria, by Connie Gault

  By Joan Givner

• Enforcing Terrible Secrets

  A review of The Bishop's Man, by Linden MacIntyre

  By Ray Guy

• Studying Supper

  A review of What's to Eat? Entrées in Canadian Food History, edited by Nathalie Cooke

  By Judy Stoffman

• Moral Vision, Empirical Rigour

  A review of Measuring the Mosaic: An Intellectual Biography of John Porter, by Rick Helmes-Hayes

  By Neil McLaughlin

• Cover art and pictures throughout the issue by Aimée van Drimmelen.

  Aimée van Drimmelen is a Canadian artist and illustrator living in Montreal. She has exhibited her artwork, including illustrated drumskins, in Montreal and New York City. To see more please visit http://aimeevandrimmelen.com.