A solid overview of Canadian agriculture for its specialized audience.
A comprehensive overview of one of Canada’s major industries.
In this debut nonfiction book, Anderson presents a methodical overview of key aspects of agriculture in Canada and its economic, social, and environmental roles. Following a textbook-style format with numerous charts, tables, and illustrations, the book explores the demographics of farming, the country’s major crops, domestic and international trade, agricultural industry trends, and the role of climate change. Anderson delves into data and statistics throughout with full citations and extended discussion in endnotes. The book covers both animal- and plant-based farming, and although the focus is on large commercial operations, it also addresses the roles of part-time and hobbyist farmers in shaping the industry. Anderson’s historical overview of agriculture in the country is particularly engaging. The chapters on climate change and the environment address how warming temperatures and changing weather patterns will affect the industry’s future as well as ways in which changes to agricultural practices can mitigate potential future crises. Overall, the book is more a reference tool than a source of casual reading, and in that context, it’s extremely effective. The topics are well organized and the writing is clear throughout; agricultural novices won’t find themselves tripped up by jargon or lengthy explanations. Anderson’s voice is especially forceful when challenging preconceptions: “Canadians like to think of their country as an agricultural superpower….But the reality is much different—far from leading the world in agriculture, Canada is falling behind on many fronts.” The book’s exploration of farming demographics is also thoughtful, addressing the roles of First Nations farmers and members of minority groups like the Hutterites and how farms shape communities. Stunning facts, such that less than 11% of Canadian land is privately owned, pop up throughout the text, adding further interest. Aspiring farmers will have to look elsewhere for instruction on methods of planting, irrigation techniques, and the minutiae of farm work, but economists, policymakers, and researchers will find this a useful introduction to a significant sector.
A solid overview of Canadian agriculture for its specialized audience.Pub Date: June 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5255-5484-1
Page Count: 340
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: Aug. 6, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.
Helping liberals get out of their own way.
Klein, a New York Times columnist, and Thompson, an Atlantic staffer, lean to the left, but they aren’t interrogating the usual suspects. Aware that many conservatives have no interest in their opinions, the authors target their own side’s “pathologies.” Why do red states greenlight the kind of renewable energy projects that often languish in blue states? Why does liberal California have the nation’s most severe homelessness and housing affordability crises? One big reason: Liberal leadership has ensnared itself in a web of well-intentioned yet often onerous “goals, standards, and rules.” This “procedural kludge,” partially shaped by lawyers who pioneered a “democracy by lawsuit” strategy in the 1960s, threatens to stymie key breakthroughs. Consider the anti-pollution laws passed after World War II. In the decades since, homeowners’ groups in liberal locales have cited such statutes in lawsuits meant to stop new affordable housing. Today, these laws “block the clean energy projects” required to tackle climate change. Nuclear energy is “inarguably safer” than the fossil fuel variety, but because Washington doesn’t always “properly weigh risk,” it almost never builds new reactors. Meanwhile, technologies that may cure disease or slash the carbon footprint of cement production benefit from government support, but too often the grant process “rewards caution and punishes outsider thinking.” The authors call this style of governing “everything-bagel liberalism,” so named because of its many government mandates. Instead, they envision “a politics of abundance” that would remake travel, work, and health. This won’t happen without “changing the processes that make building and inventing so hard.” It’s time, then, to scrutinize everything from municipal zoning regulations to the paperwork requirements for scientists getting federal funding. The authors’ debut as a duo is very smart and eminently useful.
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.Pub Date: March 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781668023488
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
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