A dense but captivating window into Canada’s modern land wars.
This nonfiction work delves into the perennial land disputes between Indigenous and settler institutions in Canada.
Canada’s war on its own Indigenous population has never ended, at least according to anthropologist and activist Stevenson. “The war is unfolding on multiple fronts—social, economic, political, cultural, spiritual, and psychological—and is being fought in arenas where the rights and interests of the two cultures clash,” writes the author in his introduction. “But first and foremost, the war is being waged in the minds of Canadians.” Whatever the intentions of the Canadian governmental and corporate authorities, many of the battles come down to a paternalistic sense that non-Indigenous institutions know better than Indigenous groups when it comes to what’s best for the land—and even what’s best for the Indigenous groups themselves. The book, which blends reportage, memoir, and analysis, explores transgressions such as the Department of Fisheries and Oceans’ attempts to shut down the Baffin Inuit beluga hunt and the relocation of the Sayisi Dene in a misguided attempt to protect the caribou population. Other topics include issues of land management, Indigenous contributions to ecological knowledge, continued marginalization of Indigenous governing bodies, and the fight for Indigenous rights across many facets of Canadian society. Stevenson’s prose is always technical, often fiery, and usually rooted in that most intricate and foundational of topics, the land: “On numerous occasions when discussing Aboriginal title and land ownership with First Nations elders, they have corrected me employing the epithet: ‘We do not own the land, the land owns us.’ Perhaps more than any other, this characterization captures the true nature of Aboriginal title and the right to sovereignty over their lands.” The author is a passionate advocate, and his enthusiasm for addressing the injustices still perpetrated against Indigenous people is contagious. Most intriguing are the sections in which Indigenous traditional ecological knowledge challenges the claims of environmental scientists—a dispute many readers may not know much about. The volume is a bit too legalistic for general readers, but for those with questions about the current fault lines in the struggle for greater Indigenous autonomy in Canada, this is a wide-ranging and well-researched work.
A dense but captivating window into Canada’s modern land wars.Pub Date: March 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5255-8584-5
Page Count: 212
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: March 8, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
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