A 12-year old boy, son of an Italian camp cook, is shot in the back and killed near the Orford Mountain Railway construction site in rural Quebec in August 1905. The crime is all the more staggering for being the second child murder on a railway in three days. A wave of shock and terror… Read more »
World trade was revolutionized in the 19th century when ships went from sail to steam. Crossing the Atlantic under steam was clearly an engineering and navigating feat to be celebrated. A controversy thus developed about which was the first steamship to make the crossing, who built it, and where. Several ships, including the Great Western… Read more »
FREE DELIVERY IN NORTH AMERICA DURING COVID-19 CRISIS A series of murders in Montreal park near the Gursky Memorial Hospital have Nurse Annie Linton and Detective Gilles Bellechasse hopping. Suspects include a vigilante group fighting drug dealers, a jealous husband, competing drug dealers, and a mysterious woman of whom nude drawings turn up in a… Read more »
“Women do not go on strike and do not get drunk.” — John A. Rose, cigar manufacturer, explaining to a Royal Commision why textile manufacturers should hire women, 1888. Girls and women were essential to industrialization in Canada, particularly in the cotton textile industry, which was concentrated in Quebec. In 1891, for example, more than… Read more »
“The French number more than a million in the United States…. They are kept a distinct alien race, subject to the Pope in matters of religion and of politics. Soon…they will govern you, Americans.” — British-American Citizen (Boston), 1889 Americans don’t think of Canada as a source of potential terrorists—speaking a foreign tongue, serving a… Read more »
“the hardness of the Indians they must have embrothered to be able to settle and have them as conspirators in the rebellion against contrarious potent churly England.” — Jack Kerouac, Visions of Gerard “a major undertaking … a valuable contribution,” Canada’s History Long before the Davy Crocketts, the Daniel Boones and Jim Bridgers, the French… Read more »
Montreal is one of those unique cities at the crossroads of history. Paul-André Linteau’s The History of Montréal provides essential background for both Montrealers and all those who will converge on the city to celebrate the 375th anniversary of the founding of Montreal in 1642. Montreal has always intrigued. For centuries, people have written, talked,… Read more »
“Indeed, the book is a treasure trove of information, with 15 essays about the collection and hundreds of illustrations, all with explanations of what the object depicted was used for. It also contains footnotes to more references, and a long bibliography.” John Pohl, The Montreal Gazette Journey to the Heart of the First Peoples Collections reveals… Read more »
Baraka Books proudly offers readers a new edition of her third, least-known book to mark that anniversary. Undeniably a genius on urban issues, Jane Jacobs also grappled with the question of nations and political sovereignty. Out of print since the mid 80s, The Question of Separatism, Quebec and the struggle over sovereignty now includes a… Read more »
“Vaugeois’s fascinating account, amply illustrated by archival documents, is a valuable contribution to the history of Quebec, Canada and minority-majority relations.” The Montreal Gazette (7 July 2012) “This is a fine translation… Verdict: A significant contribution to our understanding of this period from the perspective of a family espousing a minority faith. Non-French-reading students of… Read more »
