Stone Country: A Unauthorized History of Canada

by George Bowering

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0143013971
• ISBN13: 9780143013976
• Release Date: January 2003
• Publisher: Penguin Books Canada
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.42 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Necessary reading

As a USAmerican (Bowering's reference to those of us south of Canada), I have now spent my last two vacations in Canada looking for a history of a place that we USAmericans know nothing about. This is it. It reads like a Howard Zinn's version of Canada told by someone with a (insert here your favorite political left political comedian -- George Carlin, Lenny Bruce, Margaret Cho, etc.) sensibility. It is, of course, interesting that you can only get used hardbacks in USAmerica. I bought a new paperback in a good independent bookstore in Victoria, BC. A couple of lines that I like: Like long poems and war songs and parental advice, history books are generally about myths. . . . In places where white people used not to live, the white people always want to know about who was there first. (p. 19) The US has always favord a real or imaginary attack on its ships as an excuse to unleash its war machine. In later years it would call on people to rmember ships that were attacked in Cuba, Tampico, Hawaii, the Gulf of Tonkin, etc. In 1812 it went to way with Britain and tried to invade Canada [actually we didn't try but were defeated] after a series of incidents concerning US frigates. (p. 117) If you want to read about the history of our neighbor to the north told from a perspective of the neighbor, this is the book. It should remind us all in a post 9/11 environment we USAmericans have been telling others what to do for a very, very long time.