The life and legacy of Serafim "Joe" Fortes, a trailblazing Black lifeguard, who became a cultural icon in a racist societySearching for Serafim is a layered exploration of the life of Serafim "Joe" Fortes. A Trinidad native who arrived on the shores of Canada in 1885, Fortes was heralded as a hero in Vancouver for saving dozens of people from drowning as the city's first lifeguard, and his funeral drew the largest crowd ever recorded in the city's history...

The life and legacy of Serafim “Joe” Fortes, a trailblazing Black lifeguard, who became a cultural icon in a racist societySearching for Serafim is a layered exploration of the life of Vancouver's first lifeguard, Serafim “Joe” Fortes. A Trinidad native who arrived on the shores of Canada in 1885, Fortes was heralded as a hero in Vancouver for saving dozens of people from drowning, and his funeral drew the largest crowd ever recorded in the city's history....

What does it mean to be a Canadian? What great ideas have changed our country? An award-winning writer casts her eye over our nation’s history, highlighting some of our most important stories.From the acclaimed historian Charlotte Gray comes a richly rewarding book about what it means to be Canadian. Readers already know Gray as an award-winning biographer, a writer who has brilliantly captured significant individuals and dramatic moments in our history. Now, in

A wild ride through Canadian history, fully revised and updated!This new edition of Canadian History For Dummies takes readers on a thrilling ride through Canadian history, from indigenous native cultures and early French and British settlements through Paul Martin's shaky minority government. This timely update features all the latest, up-to-the-minute findings in historical and archeological research. In his trademark irreverent style, Will Ferguson cele...

Exploring Toronto’s history through the stories of its most fascinating and shadowy deaths.If these streets could talk…With morbid tales of war and plague, duels and executions, suicides and séances, Toronto’s past is filled with stories whose endings were anything but peaceful. The Toronto Book of the Dead delves into these: from ancient First Nations burial mounds to the grisly murder of Toronto’s first lighthouse keeper; from the rise and fall o...

Peter C. Newman’s poison pen has lodged itself in the viscera of the Canadian elite. In Mavericks, he has selected his most evocative writing about those Canadians who run against the grain on the grandest scale, including Conrad Black, Garth Drabinsky, the Eaton boys, Louis Riel, Robert Campeau and Peter Nygard. In the world of politics, he takes on Brian Mulroney, Kim Campbell, René Lévesque, Bill Vander Zalm and Lucien Bouchard. He also includes a vignette about John Diefenbake...

The award-winning, bestselling author of While Canada Slept gives his view of a country wasted on Canadians.What is national character? What makes the Americans, the British, the French, the Russians, and the Chinese who they are? In this homogenized world, where globalization is a byword for a deadening sameness, why do peoples who live in the same region, use the same money, read the same books, and watch the same movies remain different from one another? As much as Cana...

A Toronto Star bestsellerAcclaimed, bestselling author and "“master of modern travel writing” (Wall Street Journal) Paul Theroux turns his gaze to Canada in a sweeping, personal journey.For more than half a century, Paul Theroux has traveled the globe and chronicled its far corners with curiosity, wit, and an unflinching eye. With True North, his twelfth travel book, he turns that eye to a country...

INSTANT BESTSELLERFINALIST FOR THE HILARY WESTON WRITERS’ TRUST PRIZE FOR NONFICTIONFrom a leading scholar on the politics of race comes a work of family history, memoir, and insight gained from a unique journey across the continent, on what it is to be Black in North America.When Debra Thompson moved to the United States in 2010, she felt like she was returning to the land of her ancestors, those who had escaped to ...

A history of American racial exploitation and resistance, told through the turbulent past of the city of St. Louis."A masterpiece that both haunts and inspires." —Heather Ann Thompson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Blood in the WaterFrom Lewis and Clark's 1804 expedition to the 2014 uprising in Ferguson, American history has been made in St. Louis. And as Walter Johnson shows in this searing book, the city exemp...

In a country this diverse, 'culture' has different meanings. Vance tells a story from the wind-swept Arctic where a stranded Innu woman, fighting to survive, took the time to decorate her clothing with rich designs. A British explorer was amazed at her efforts, but Vance reminds us of the inseparable connection between life and art in Inuit culture (the Innu word for 'breathe' also means 'to make poetry,' and both derive from the word for 'the soul'). No surprise that Aboriginal culture began...

Who are we? In Canadians, one of Canada’s most intelligent and beloved writers maps our national psyche in a wonderful and ambitious work. Canadians is an entertaining portrait of this country and its people, through its history, popular culture, literature, sport, landscape, and weather. In his pursuit of the Canadian national identity, MacGregor has travelled far and wide, taking our pulse, telling our stories. A sparkling blend of historical, anecdotal, and reflective ...