No comments about Beginnings: Stories of Canada's Past.

No comments about My Life at the Bar And Beyond (Footprints).

No comments about War Criminal on Trial: Rauca of Kaunas.

No comments about In the Shadow of Detroit: Gordon M. Mcgregor, Ford of Canada, And Motoropolis (Great Lakes Books).

1 comments about Vancouver: A Visual Hist.

1. Having lived in Vancouver, B.C. for 4 years, I felt a strong need to take something with me when I left, "to remember it". That was the reason I bought this book. Anyone familiar with Vancouver will find this facinating, as there are literally thousands of little tidbits of information on every page. What I find truly best is the VISUAL part - the text centers around the map of Vancouver, tieing events to PLACES. For example, if you know Kitsilano, you may NOT have known that Veterans aparments were along 4th avenue in the 1940s (I later lived in that area). Or that in 1981 (and probably today) that same area had a very high concentration of Greeks. My book was ruined in a flood, and I'm writing this review as I'm ordering a new one.

1 comments about Wrong Way: The Fall of Conrad Black.

1. The authors promise a critical examination of Conrad Black and Hollinger International, and that is what they deliver. With the exception of Richard Breeden, and perhaps Christopher Browne, none of the major characters in the book go uncriticized at some point in it. The narrative is not only engrossing, but also is sufficiently fact-driven to allow a reader to draw his or her own conclusions about the causes of the implosion of Hollinger. (It is vaguely worded in spots, but that would only be a drawback for those who would use it as a textbook or monograph.)
   
   It also has a new relevance thanks to the current trial of Conrad Black, Peter Atkinson, Jack Boultbee and Mark Kipnis. In fact, a recent prosecution witness, Fred Creasey, could have used this book to refresh his memory before his testimony in the trial. (Near-bottom of p. 53.) One other nice feature of this book is that it quotes the E-mails that Conrad Black wrote, recently excerpted in the media, in more copious detail than those excerpts reveal. This level of detail will satisfy the curiosity of anyone who's already read those quotes.
   
   I have only one quibble with the book, which does not relate to its self-imposed limitation of time scope. In the Epilogue, the authors portray Conrad Black as a relic of a bygone age, but their sense of history is somewhat inaccurate. Rather than being a holdover from the nineteenth century, Conrad Black, to the extent to which he is a relic as a CEO, is a holdover from the management culture of the 1980s. When a proper history of that period is written, it will be found that the grandfather of that era was Frederic Donner, chairman and CEO of General Motors from 1958 to 1967. The ever-growing scandals of shareholder abuse are distorted mirrors of Mr. Donner's image; the distortion comes from the relaxation of Donner's well-known probity.

No comments about Hell No We Won't Go: Vietnam Draft Resisters in Canada.

No comments about The Bite of the Mango.

No comments about Queen Elizabeth II and the Royal Family in Canada (Golden Jubilee.

2 comments about Outlaws of the Lakes: Bootlegging & Smuggling from Colonial Times to Prohibition.

1. Edward Butts book Outlaws of the Lakes is nothing less than brilliant! A must to read! This is an extemely well written account of both Canadian and American smuggler's, bootleggers and corrupt government official's at it's best! Also great detailed accounts on Al Capone and his rivals Dion O'Bannon and the Purple Gang. A must for crime readers and historian buffs! I give this book 5-stars with highest honors.



2. The Great Lakes have served as a smuggler's freeway since Canada's infancy. In "Outlaws of the Lakes: Bootlegging and Smuggling", Canadian author Ed Butts tackles the subject of the illegal trade in booze and just about everything else banned or excessively taxed by the government. He also highlights its more infamous practitioners, such as Rocco Perri, Canada's Al Capone.
   
   Butts has dicovered or deduced some eye-opening facts. He demonstrates that a French bootlegger was responsible for the founding of Detroit, and points out that smugglers made a valuable contribution to the British-Canadian victory during the War of 1812. Historic triumphs aside, Butts does not whitewash or glorify the degraded character of the smuggler or the vicious reality of his / her daily life. These lake pirates killed each other, turned the legal system into a farce by bribing government officials, and created a legacy of violence and corruption that taints Canada and the United States to this day.