Writing, more than espionage, is the subject of le Carré’s memoir—all the better for his fans
October 2016
“These are true stories told from memory,” John le Carré writes in his introduction to this wide-ranging collection of personal anecdotes drawn from a lifetime of living and writing. But, he cautions, “was there ever such a thing as pure memory? I doubt it. Even when we convince ourselves that we’re being dispassionate, sticking to the bald facts with no self-serving decorations or…
Glimpses of Canada through other literary eyes
July–August 2012
Canada is not a place that turns up regularly in the poetry, novels, plays or non-fiction memoirs of other cultures. Maybe that is because when foreign writers come here they tend to have immigration on their minds rather than tourism. Once they settle within our vast borders, we embrace them pretty quickly as Canadian authors, even if their palette is Mumbai rather than…
Defending idyllic rural communities takes more than a sense of place
March 2009
This little book—short enough to be read at a single sitting, small enough to fit into one’s jacket pocket—has big ambitions. It is really three essays in one: a manifesto announcing an ecologically based view of Western Canadian history, a lament for a lost community and advice on how to resist the forces of “hyper-development,” the rapid urbanization of once cosy rural mountain…
How to interpret the role of western-backed NGOs in Eastern Europe
September 2007
In November 2004, The Globe and Mail’s then Moscow bureau chief, Mark MacKinnon, was in the thick of it as Ukraine experienced its remarkable Orange Revolution. After almost two months of massive demonstrations and a historic supreme court decision to rerun the contested presidential election, Viktor Yushchenko and his comely but fractious sidekick, Yulia…
The “natural governing party” goes through atavisticrituals to try to recapture its place in the sun
March 2007
In every human community the organization of power is the result of two opposed forces: beliefs on the one hand, practical necessities on the other. In consequence the leadership of political parties—like that of most present-day social groups: trade unions, associations, business firms, and so on—presents dual characteristics: it is democratic in appearance and oligarchic in …
Could Michael Ignatieff be both?
October 2006
Why fix a Canadian electoral system that isn’t broken?
April 2006
Aspectre is haunting the land—the spectre of electoral reform. Once confi ned to small think tanks, political science departments, academic journals and addenda to royal commission reports, the subject has suddenly become highly visible, invoked in op-ed pieces, editorials, websites and weblogs, panel discussions and public debates, full-blown reports, and even in parliamentary motions and supreme court…
