History of bookstores

 

Selection in a book store matters. Those big stores move a lot of books, instore and online, I know, but I stroll through Indigo and feel overwhelmed and depressed by the endless rows of books I don't want to read, between the heaping piles of the same bestsellers everyone is reading this week.

Stroll through a smaller bookstore curated by staff with a close commitment to what they sell -- and mostly I find something. At least I come out engaged rather than dishearted.

This weekend is indie bookstore day. Participating stores will include you in a thousand-dollar prize draw just for buying something.  You probably won't win.  Just go for the pleasure of it.

History by analogy

Mackenzie, come again?

Borealia, the early Canadian history site, offers a little essay, a "cautionary tale," about the march on Toronto of the Upper Canadian rebellion of 1837 that sets up an odd, maybe perplexing, analogy to the recent Truckers' Convoy to Ottawa.  

I'm not sure what message the essay seeks to convey. If you sympathize with the rebels of 1837, you ought to have supported the truckers? Governor Bond Head's torching of civilian homes and other acts of vengeance are the same thing as Parliament's invocation of the Emergencies Act? Or just that all official actions against protest or violence are equally illegitimate? ("The issue of potential government overreach remains, and is even exacerbated, as it transcends the political spectrum when considering the modern issue.")

Or maybe that historical arguments are improved when they offer more than simple analogy and juxtaposition of past and present events.  

Book Notes: Reading or Meaning to

Some books on my horizon.

1. The Palace Papers by Tina Brown

I'm not one to read, let alone post about, monarchy books and their effusions. But I'm making an exception for this one, just because Tina Brown is so damn sharp and smart about anything she covers. As one of the book's blurbs says, "she knows this world better than many who inhabit it."  (Also because it strikes me that no Canadian could read this book and continue to imagine that the British monarchy has any relevance to Canada -- a word that, no surprise, does not appear in the book. Update: maybe once.)

If you can't face the book, there's a good sample of the work Brown does in the Globe and Mail excerpt from last Saturday. And there's also an audio sample in her interview with Kara Swisher at the Sway podcast (if paywalled at the Times, should be available "where you get your podcasts.")

On one point, I hesitantly disagree with Brown. She notes that the unpopularity of Charles harms the monarchy's prospects. (Abolish-the-monarchy types I hang out expect the mere words "King Charles" will put an end to the monarchy all by itself.) But the system always has an "out" monarch to balance the "in" monarch, and a bad member or two to balance the good one.  Once Her Majesty dies, and her long-unemployed son is suddenly wrapped in all the power and pomp of the throne, the monarchy machine will surely rehabilitate Charles's image.

2. Origins: A Genetic History of the Americas by Jennifer Raff and The Indigenous Paleolithic by Paulette Steeves

Origins is the latest survey of what's known about the peopling of the Americas by our species.  It starts with a long survey of all the previous explanations, informed by the author's acute awareness of the racism and privilege that has typified a lot of archaeological thinking in the past.  There's also a lab scientist's eye view of how genetic science actually works on these questions, and an attempt to sort out what is known fairly surely and what's yet to be sorted out in this whole field. I thought it was lively and readable and both sensible and sensitive throughout.

I was left with a feeling, nevertheless, this is a story where the mysteries are fading away. When I made an Ideas documentary about thirty years ago on the peopling of the Americas, it was already pretty clear to the specialists I talked to, not only that all early peoples in the Americas came via north-eastern Asia as part of the human migration from Africa into Eurasia and all over the planet. They also understood by then that at least a few people had reached the Americas south of the great ice cap before the ice had retreated sufficiently for an southbound migration east of the Rockies to be feasible. There was almost no firm evidence for a coastal migration down the Pacific coast, but it already seemed increasingly likely that the coast had to be the prime vector of early migration. Detailed evidence on "the kelp highway" is still slim in Ruff's account, but more than ever, it has to be the opening to the Americas.  

How early, however, isn't very well established. And the brand-new genetic evidence Raff reviews, while conclusive about the big picture and strongly suggesting early migration dates barely 20,000 years ago, is still thin on specifics. So lots yet to fill in at the detail level.

I must say this book contrasted with a 2022 Ideas documentary (much more recent than mine!) I recently heard. It profiles Paulette Steeves, an indigenous archeologist who is moving and insightful about all the maddening challenges and blocks that face an indigenous women practising ancient North American archaeology.  I was less persuaded, however, by her conviction that anyone who doubts her ancestors were here in the Americas 130,000 years ago or more must be motivated solely by racism.  Ruff is sensitive about prejudiced assumptions, but she's also sensitive to the limits placed by established knowledge. As humans, we're still new everywhere, by archaeological timescales. A tenth of the time Steeves wants to postulate still means the First Nations have been here since the world began, when the rivers were beginning to run and the salmon to swim up them.

3.  And Some Meaning-to-Reads

The Summer Trade: A History of Tourism on Prince Edward Island by Alan MacEachern and Edward Macdonald. A history of PEI and tourism, just out.

Jackson's Wars: A.Y. Jackson and the Birth of the Group of Seven by Douglas Hunter.  Looks to be a new angle on the painter and the Group. Coming in May.

Canadian Spy Story: Irish Revolutionaries and the Secret Police by David Wilson.  Coming in June.

All McGill-Queen's books, I note. Are they doing something right?

 

History of Team Brutus

Boris considers his "team"

As the Alberta "United" Conservative Party vote-buying orgy/leadership review goes on ("Even Mr. Kenney’s supporters acknowledge that shifting to mail-in ballots plays in his favour, which is part of the reason why he is facing allegations of cheating"), abuse pours in upon UCP backbench caucus members who are simultaneously considering whether the caucus should simply remove Kenney from the leadership.

“The idea that you have a caucus with people in it who publicly express that they do not want the current leader is so insane and crazy and out of the political normal,” said Ken Boessenkool, who served former Prime Minister Stephen Harper as a senior campaign adviser, and former British Columbia Premier Christy Clark as Chief of Staff. “Politics is a team sport.”

Boessenkool has good reason for believing leadership accountability is insane and crazy and all. He's a strategist, and loyalty to the leader who employs them is how strategists earn their retainers. But the "team" he refers to are all elected representatives of the people of Alberta, not hired flaks. When the leader is putting them out of favour with their constituents and likely to cause them to lose their seats in the next election, to whom does the "team" owe loyalty?

As a Canadian political strategist, Boessenkool more or less has to avert his or her eyes from examples from beyond his own employer's office suite. Even the Conservative Party "team"in Ottawa recently fired its leader, though that only triggered the leadership campaign of Pierre Polievre, whom most of the team appears to despise. (More work for the strategists, however.)  And look at Britain, mother of parliaments, these days: "To back or to sack: The Tory Party in disarray over Boris Johnson" goes the headline, describing the caucus members can't decide to fire the prime minister from leadership now or wait a little longer.

History of Azovstal

Historian of the day Adam Tooze recounts his recent discovery of the history of the vast Azovstal steel works in Mariupol, currently the site of a Thermopylae-style resistance by the remaining Ukrainian defenders of the city. The steel plant began with a 19th century investment by American financiers attracted to the close association of coal, iron ore, and a seaport. It was massively expanded in the 1930s to become one of the showplace achievements of Stalinist heavy industrial development, then destroyed during the German occupation in the Second World War, and rebuilt by the Soviets once more.  At the collapse of the USSR it became the prize toy of an oligarch, who instantly became Ukraine's richest man -- and is now supporting Ukraine against his old benefactors. 

What brought us to this point of a factory fight in Southern Ukraine?

At moments like this, history truly reveals its quality as a pal·imp·sest - a manuscript or piece of writing on which the original writing has been effaced to make room for later writing but of which traces remain. The search functions of the internet reinforce that quality, constantly surfacing long-forgotten pieces from a different era.

Slava Ukraini. 

 

History of that campaign to rename Dundas Street

When the renaming of anything in Canada named after Henry Dundas was mooted a few years ago, I was sympathetic mostly on the grounds that Dundas, a British politician and Scots grandee, never really had anything to do with Canada. The reason for cancelling him -- that in 1792 he was kinda, sorta opposed to the abolition of slavery -- seemed maybe a bit of a stretch, even at the time  But I thought that names with local significance could well replace his. 

Now a little twitter flurry has brought to my attention a very cogent, detailed, sensible, and copiously sourced argument [link corrected -- didn't mean to link to myself!] from a couple of years ago that Dundas was indeed a lifetime supporter of abolition, at some political risk to himself, and a better parliamentary strategist for abolition than some of his more radical allies. So if Toronto goes ahead with renaming Dundas Street, I'll be okay with it but aware it's another case of bad history driving out good. Or should I say, good results may come from bad history? 

History of who's cancelling who

 Alex Usher at the HESA blog goes to town on the new "academic" "freedom" law proposed in Quebec:

Come. Let us speak together, honestly, about Loi 32, An Act Respecting Academic Freedom in the University Sector in Quebec. Because it sets a new standard both in government interference in universities and in all-around sheer holy-crap-this-is-what-public-policy-is being-reduced to.

History of the monarchy

Which party leader, prime minister, or premier is one day going to address the question of the monarchy?

The monarchy claque will have some heavy lifting to do in the next few weeks. Srsly, can anyone in Canada get excited about these two dropping in? (Well, yes, actually, some, but their effusions do seem more and more eccentric.)

At some point, someone among our elected representatives is going to have to step up and say the part no one seems prepared to say aloud: Who are these people, and what do they have to do with us and our institutions?

I can see the reasons politicians are leery around the issue. Moving ahead on the head of state question is going to be more complicated in Canada than in Barbados, Jamaica, or the many former or about to be former monarchies around the Commonwealth. We have a constitution that sets a high bar on constitutional change, and a political situation that sets it even higher. Even if we start the conversation now, Charles will probably live out his own reign before the work is done. 

But in the end, leadership in raising the thing people are thinking about is often the right political move.

Update, April 13:  Russ Chamberlayne responds:

Mightn't the Royals drift into total benign neglect in Canada? The roles maintained, but the people in them all but forgotten.

Who pays attention to the Governor General or any of the Lieutenants Governor? The British contingent sub-topical. Rarely reanimated fossils. Even their scandals.

In the photo, Charles reminds me of so many portraits I see on the Georgian Lords twitter site (@GeorgianLords). Two-tone face, hat-protected above and burnt red below.

Russ, you appal me. Surely the royals have already drifted into "total benign neglect in Canada." But a real head of state would be a good thing for Canada. It's the second-rate status imposed by the increasingly ghostly royals that prevents us from taking the governors-general seriously. 

(But you are not alone. During the Payette scandal, support for abolishing the monarchy soared, but most of them wanted to do away with the governor-general as well.) 

The appropriate means of selecting a Canadian head of state remains uncertain. I like the idea of nominations from any province or territory plus the Assembly of First Nations (or equivalent body), with the final selection made by a council of First Nations elders, followed by a Canadian inauguration ceremony. 

Update, April 19:  CBC News reports the federal government will not bother to hold a distribution of Queen's Jubilee Medals for the platinum anniversary this year. Baby steps, baby steps.   

Responsible Government in Pakistan and Canada

Imran Khan is no longer the prime minister of Pakistan. His party and its coalition partners lost a confidence vote in the Pakistani legislature the other day, and now an opposition coalition is putting together a new government.  

The crucial event in the defeat of the Khan government was the defection of some of Khan's own backbench supporters. Once they committed to supporting a non-confidence motion, he looked like toast.  

In recent days there has been a flurry of activity - and what some argue were tactics straight out of Machiavelli's playbook - which resulted in several Khan allies deserting his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, tilting the scales firmly in the opposition's favour.

Khan, however did not go quietly, or even accept that he might have to. Both in Parliament and in the courts, he argued that he could not be removed from office even by a majority vote in Parliament, telling huge crowds of supporters the looming vote against him was all a matter of foreign conspiracy and corrupt thieves. Khan actually declared that his backbenchers were not allowed to vote against him. 

The government is seeking a Supreme Court ruling that would not only bar dissident PTI members from voting under an anti-defection law, but also disqualify them from parliament for life.

But the court said no, the confidence vote went ahead despite Khan's edict cancelling it, and now he's out of power.  

I do not know the internal politics of Pakistan that eroded Khan's support.  But I can't help wondering if Canadian politicians would borrow from Khan in similar circumstances.  

Parliamentary democracies all over the world operate on the principle of responsible government: "Responsible government means majority government, but of a particular sort -- majority rule, not by the electorate, but by a majority of the electorate's elected representatives." 

Evidently Imran Khan doesn't think this applies to him: he's the people's prime minister. And that's an idea that has a lot of currency in Canada now.  There's actually a guy who says he's running for prime minister when he's really in the midst of trying to sell enough party memberships to secure his party's leadership. How likely would he be to accept that the hacks on the backbenchers (his caucus support is more or less zero) should have any influence upon him? 

Prime Minister Harper frequently said during election campaigns that whichever party leader won the most seats got to be prime minister. And on election nights the media has regularly followed his lead, anointing as prime minister someone who will only command minority support until the House meets and votes.  If the NDP removed its support of Justin Trudeau and a few Liberal backbenchers chose to go with them, would Trudeau accept he could be legitimately be replaced in office by whomever the majority of the House preferred over him? Would Jagmeet Singh accept defeat if their positions were reversed and he were about to lose a confidence vote? Would Doug Ford or Francois Legault?

Yeah, probably, I guess. We still have a way to go in overriding those norms. But not such a long ways.  Populist, majoritarian, "let the people speak" attitudes are widespread and confident in Canada as elsewhere.

On the other hand, the Pakistani parliament did speak, and Prime Minister Khan is out of office, at least until he can reassemble a majority coalition. Two cheers for parliamentary democracy

History of Literary Unionism

The latest from Ken Whyte's SHuSH blog #143 argues that Canadian writers "need a real union." I think he means a union that succeeds in some ambitious goals, and in that sense I agree with him entirely. I'd welcome such successes. But as one who contributed in small ways to various campaigns of the actual and existing Writers' Union of Canada over the years, I could not help smiling at some of the proposals Whyte puts forward as new and original.

Among the goals of "a real union" of writers, Whyte recommends:

• more pay for writers -- a demand he supports with detailed data on how low writers' incomes are. He doesn't mention that all his data on the earnings of Canadian writers seem to come from surveys commissioned and paid for by the Writers' Union of Canada, which actually has been working at this matter for many decades;

• increasing payments to writers from Public Lending Right. Whyte doesn't mention that after decades of advocacy by Canadian writers, it was the sustained lobbying of the Writers' Union that brought PLR into being in 1987, or that more recent lobbying by the union led to recent and significant increases in PLR funding. More? Sure, but likely to come along the same way.

• better contract terms for writers. Whyte seems unaware of the model trade book contract  laboriously developed and promoted by the Writers' Union, the contract advising service it has always offered its members and other writers, the legal advice it provides, the grievance process it runs, the Minimum Terms Agreements negotiations it sought to have with publishers, the random royalty audits of publishers' royalty statements it undertook. It's true that many of these initiatives, particularly bargaining with publishers over money and rights, have had limited success (which may be why the Union makes more noise about its many successes in changing the writing-and-publishing policies and practices of governments and public agencies).  The failure to unionize publishing contracts was mostly due, I can testify, to the granite-hard opposition marshalled by virtually every publisher large and small, foreign and Canadian, and by their well-heeled organizations. Lack of success in this area is because it is hard, not because it has not previously been thought of or fought for . 

• union activity rather than employment of agents. Whyte mocks Canadian writers for both having both a union and employing agents. Historically, the seemingly endless impossibility of achieving contract reform coincided with and doubtless spurred the rise of literary agency in Canada, which indeed has benefited writers much more than Whyte, a publisher as well as a writer, can see, and which still leaves much scope for union activity in areas which agents do not address.  

Surprisingly, Whyte fails even to note the need for a union-run collective licensing agency to manage and licence creators' reprography rights (ie, copying both digital and xerographic) -- which ought be another significant source of Canadian writers' incomes. The Writers' Union of Canada campaigned for collective licensing from its first moments, and  was instrumental in bringing into being the Canadian legislation for collective licensing in the 1980s  -- despite immense opposition from the education sector and much apathy in the publishing community. Regrettably, the copyright collective Access Copyright has since been captured by publishers, so that a handful of foreign-owned educational publishers control how -- and how much -- income collected on creators' behalf actually reaches creators. It seems to be as a result of that capture that legislators and judges, while they continue to endorse the fairness of collective licensing in principle, have been consistently reluctant to give the existing collective the tools necessary to allow it to work in practice.

Whyte does offer one rather original suggestion: a campaign to abuse librarians and cultural bureaucrats for their job security and high salaries. I think he's right to suggest the real Writers' Union has never engaged in that. The union has, however, engaged constantly in negotiation with those same libraries and bureaucrats to secure benefits for writers -- a form of collective action which does seem more directly useful to writers than abuse and barrier-building.

Still most of Whyte's other proposals do have quite a lot of appeal to writers. He goes wrong, I think, only when he suggests the existing writers' organizations would call them "impractical, unworkable, untested, ridiculous." More likely, they might reply, it's just difficult, given the forces lined up against them, particularly in the publishing sector. 

One very early Writers' Union gathering  

   

Prize Watch: The Shaughnessy Cohen shortlist

Journalists dominate over historians among the shortlist nominees for the Writers' Trust Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political books

• The Two Michaels: Innocent Canadian Captives and High Stakes Espionage in the US-China Cyber War by Mike Blanchfield & Fen Osler Hampson from Sutherland House;
• China Unbound: A New World Disorder by Joanna Chiu from House of Anansi;
• Flora!: A Woman in a Man’s World by Flora MacDonald & Geoffrey Stevens from McGill-Queen's;
• The Next Age of Uncertainty: How the World Can Adapt to a Riskier Future by Stephen Poloz from the PenguinRandom imprint Allen Lane
• "Indian" in the Cabinet: Speaking Truth to Power by Jody Wilson-Raybould from HarperCollins.

Considering yesterday's notes on the state of Canadian writing and publishing, it's worth noting that the two small Canadian presses here have matched the total nominations for the big branchplants (with an academic press giving a made-in-Canada majority).

Indian in the Cabinet impressed me a lot, but it's is the only nominatted book I have read.  And the Cohen Prize juries have been unpredictable in their sense of what makes a good "political" book.

History of trend chasing

The writer Mark Bourrie, whose Radisson biography Bush Runner did well a couple of years ago, declares he ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more. Nobody loves Canadian history anymore so he's writing something else  

Got a book deal Monday for a biography that is "Canadian" but that I hope -- and expect -- will sell far better outside of Canada than inside. I just need to read the book pages of our newspapers and walk through Indigo to see the futility of writing Canadian history.

— Mark Bourrie (@MarkBourrie) April 4, 2022

Have to say I know the feeling. Why labour on a product that these days seems to be without a market -- or even a distribution system? But in the end it's not a feasible strategy. 

By the time you have finished that manuscript designed for today's trends, the publishing world will have moved on to the next trend. The Bay Street saying "You can't time the market" applies on Grub Street too. You might as well write about what you are moved to write about, and let the fads and trends take care of themselves.