Legal historians in the news. Historian Carolyn Strange's book, Fatal Confession, which we noted here in a recent post on the Osgoode Society publications, got a substantial excerpt in the Toronto Star on the weekend, highlighting the issues of extorted confessions and prosecutorial tunnel-vision in the 1950s and later too!), which led to the speedy trial and eventual execution of Robert Fitton. Strange is a Canadian historian now teaching in Australia.
Following on the Globe's enthusiastic coverage of Eric Adams and Jordan Stanger-Ross on Japanese Canadians repatriated to Japan after World War II, it's not a bad showing for the historian/lawyer partnership that is the Osgoode Society.
Speaking of the Adams/Stanger-Ross review, I jibbed a bit about calling (dismissing?) people who read and take history seriously "buffs" Russel Chamberlayne writes
My late 1990s Gage Canadian Dictionary calls a buff a "fan; enthusiast: a hockey buff; a theatre buff."
My Oxford Dictionary of the same vintage has a somewhat more acceptable definition (at least to me) "a person who is enthusiastically interested in and very knowledgeable about a particular subject: a computer buff" It gives as the derivation: "early 20th century; originally applied to enthusiastic firewatchers, because of the buff uniforms formerly worn by New York volunteer firemen"
My Fitzhenry & Whiteside Canadian Thesaurus (2001) lists "aficionado, collector, devotee, enthusiast, expert, zealot" Pick any two of the above.
Enthusiastic firewatchers!
