Kevin Callan is not a gifted writer and could have used more help with his prose. Thankfully, the book is short enough and the material light enough fKevin Callan is not a gifted writer and could have used more help with his prose. Thankfully, the book is short enough and the material light enough for it not to matter a lot. If you’d like a first hand view of what it is like to travel around Algonquin Park in one of the most punishing loops that exist, then you will get it here along with some useful advice (e.g. what to do in a lightning storm, where not to defecate in the back country and what to do about bears swimming toward your island campsite). One of the biggest disappointments, though, with this book is that there are hardly any maps and very few photos. So many places are mentioned without any way to even situate them roughly. I like to put my phone away when I read, so Google Maps wasn’t an option. Aside from his account of tough paddling and portaging there is a fair bit of history in this book and commentary on outdoor education. I loved Kevin’s honesty, too. While bemoaning the decline of young people’s ability to manage in the outdoors, he also wonders aloud whether his concern is just a typical generational tendency. Also interesting are his pragmatic attitude toward issues such as use of technology and logging in the park. Kevin is clearly an outstanding outdoor pedagogue with interesting views on nature and useful advice. ...more
I had so many laugh out loud moments when reading this book. Jonathan and his family are probably just as weird as the rest of us are in private, but I had so many laugh out loud moments when reading this book. Jonathan and his family are probably just as weird as the rest of us are in private, but he has a great gift for capturing and probably exaggerating their traits in short little stories. There is so much wit throughout the book, in Jonathan’s own musings and in his characters. There are also some short stories that are weird takes on common motifs or parodies of well known stories. Some of these were brilliant, others less so, in my view. ...more
**spoiler alert** An academic book that makes a very compelling case using statistical analysis about the persistent effect of slave ownership levels **spoiler alert** An academic book that makes a very compelling case using statistical analysis about the persistent effect of slave ownership levels in the pre-civil war period on the attitudes of white southerners toward Black people. Specifically, the authors argue that data show that white people living in counties with higher rates of slave ownership pre-civil war continue to be “cooler� toward Black people in so-called self-reported “thermometer surveys�, that they are less likely to support policies believed to favour Blacks, and less likely to vote for the contemporary Democratic Party. The authors posit that a concept they call behavioural path dependence is the reason for the stability seen in the attitudes of white southerners in these higher slave owning counties toward Black people. Behavioural path dependence is the term used to describe the passing down of ideas and behaviours over time both through institutions and formal laws and through families and social structures (eg schools and churches). In this case, a crucial turning point that launched many white southerners on this path was the post civil war crisis get by southern cotton planters who would have faced severe economic deterioration if the now freed black slaves became politically empowered, economically mobile and able to use the shortage of labour as leverage to gain higher wages. Behaviours and policies that aimed at instilling fear in Black people to prevent them from voting and to still tie them to the land were instituted as a result. Early in the book, there are interesting references to other periods of history that may have shaped negative attitudes towards other minority groups. For example, a German study looked at voting patterns in German towns during the Weimar period showed that the Nazi party (and possibly predecessor parties) had higher shares of the vote in towns that saw anti-Jewish pogroms during the period of the plague in the 14th century. A whole bunch other interesting references are found on the same page. ...more
Great opportunity to be exposed to some very divergent views on the same topic. I felt that McMaster and Piilsbury, who were on the “yes� side of the Great opportunity to be exposed to some very divergent views on the same topic. I felt that McMaster and Piilsbury, who were on the “yes� side of the question being debated (“is China a threat to the liberal international order�) were overly strident and rhetorical at times. The debt trap claims were probably a prime example. Even those inclined to agree with sentiment that China poses as a threat to the order may not be swayed by some of the reasons they cite for why that is the case. For example, there was much emphasis on the domestic repression of the Chinese state but no clear argument about why and how this would affect the international order. On the other hand, Wang Huiyao, the Chinese think tank head who argued against, seemed to talk about China in ways that probably had more to do with how he would like it to be (a reforming, UN and international order supporting state that just needs to learn a bit more and to work harder at implementing things like WTO reforms, but intends to follow the rules) than the direction in which Xi Jinping is taking it. ...more
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