Magazine Issue ›› Jan/Feb 2012
Editor's Note
"Does the Past Have a Future?" That's the intriguing question posed in Kenneth Dewar's LRC feature essay this month. This Mt. St. Vincent historian wonders whether the modern personality-focused and pop-culture approaches to history are going to supercede traditional academic methodologies. "It seems that many readers want to experience the past," he writes, "rather than to assess competing interpretations of it."
Now that our fighting forces have left Afghanistan, the questioning begins. Two recent books, Chris Alexander's The Long Way Back: Afghanistan's Quest for Peace and Terry Glavin's Come From the Shadows: The Long and Lonely Struggle for Peace in Afghanistan, are evaluated in our pages by retired CF Colonel Michael Capstick, who has stayed on in that war-torn country advising the government and working with an international NGO based in Kabul.
One of the most talked-about books of the season has been Conrad Black's A Matter of Principle which documents, among many other things, the author's epic battles with the U.S. justice system. Our reviewer is Philip Slayton, whose own books on the Canadian legal system have caused much discussion in recent years.
Some bracing fare for mid-winter reading.
Bronwyn Drainie
Editor
In the Jan/Feb 2012 Issue
Does the Past Have a Future?
It turns out h-i-s-t-o-r-y can be spelled many different ways.
Waves of Contempt
A review of A Matter of Principle, by Conrad Black
The Afghan Decade
A review of The Long Way Back: Afghanistan's Quest for Peace, by Chris Alexander, and Come from the Shadows: The Long and Lonely Struggle for Peace in Afghanistan, by Terry Glavin
The Pierre We Hardly Knew
A review of Trudeau Transformed: The Shaping of a Statesman 1944-1965, Volume Two, by Monique and Max Nemni, translated by George Tombs
Love and Marriage Canadian-Style
A review of Hearts and Minds: Canadian Romance at the Dawn of the Modern Era, 1900-1930, by Dan Azoulay
The Ties that Bind
A review of Rebecca Kingston's Public Passion: Rethinking the Grounds for Political Justice
A Very Modern Pandemic
A review of The Origins of AIDS, by Jacques Pepin
The New Bogeymen
A review of Gangland: The Rise of the Mexican Drug Cartels From El Paso to Vancouver, by Jerry Langton
Artistic Autocrat
A review of The Pursuit of Perfection: A Life of Celia Franca, by Carol Bishop-Gwyn
Monday Morning
Terrorist
Lead
Ship's Prow Is the Cubist Slate They Call a Face
Endearing Assassins
A review of Patrick deWitt's The Sisters Brothers
Dubai Glitz to Hardware Retail
A review of David Penhale's Passing Through
Up in the Air
A review of Diplomacy in the Digital Age: Essays in Honour of Ambassador Allan Gotlieb, edited by Janice Gross Stein
Heroism and Villainy
A review of Heroes of the Acadian Resistance: The Story of Joseph Beausoleil Broussard and Pierre II Suette, 1702-1765, by Dianne Marshall
Full Steam Ahead?
A review of The Leap: How to Survive and Thrive in the Sustainable Economy, by Chris Turner
Letters and Responses
Ken Greenberg, Allan Fotheringham, David Berlin, William Marsden, Susan Felsberg
Cover art and pictures throughout the issue by Ryan Dodgson.
Born in Hong Kong in 1984, Ryan Dodgson has in recent years been living and working across from various chocolate factories in Toronto. His work has won a number of awards and appeared in Eye Weekly, McSweeney’s, The Believer and The New York Times among other publications. He is currently at work on a book-and-record set with musician/friend Moshe Rozenberg.
Letters for Jan/Feb 2012
Re: "Waves of Contempt," by Philip Slayton (Jan/Feb 2012)
I could not really accept the LRC’s invitation to reply to its review of my book A Matter of Principle without, in effect, pleading that my book was not “a bombastic and narcissistic mess.” I can only write that no other reviewer, and there have been many in several countries, as it chugs into its third hardcover printing, remotely suggested any of that. But if any reader writes me at cbletters@gmail.com that his or her decision to buy or read this book has been negatively influenced by this review, I will ask the publishers to send more representative reviews, including, if it has reviewed it, from any publication the reader specifies.
I can’t help wondering, briefly, where Canlit finds crabby, obscure reviewers like this; perhaps there is a home for hobbit ogres with literary pretensions somewhere in Canada. Or maybe this is a Mr. Hyde to an otherwise house-trained Dr. Jekyll who can be induced to come snorting out of the undergrowth snapping and gibbering on special occasions.
Whoever this reviewer is has serious cognitive problems and apparently suffers from a merciless personality disorder as well. I have, he writes, forfeited his sympathy (which is the last thing I ever sought), but assure him that he has mine.
Conrad Black
Miami, FloridaResponse to Waves of Contempt
The LRC welcomes letters. We reserve the right to publish such letters and edit them for length, clarity and accuracy. E-mail editor[at]lrcreview[dot]com.
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