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It wasn't so much a big blue machine that chugged its way across Ontario's political landscape in the spring of 1995 - it was more a big purple bulldozer driven by leader Mike Harris and a new breed of Tories. Gone were the pinstripes and the cigar-chomping backroom boys of the forty-two years of Tory rule. These Tories were young, hip, and they were riding the wave of their Common Sense Revolution, a platform launched a year earlier. Still, there...

The Town of Orangeville has a colourful, exciting past – a history being documented in book form for the first time. From the early days of the Irish pioneers escaping the political problems of Ireland to the present influx of new residents fleeing the pressures of cities, Orangeville has been a town that has adapted well to change, always ready for new ideas. The strength of the community has been the people who have chosen to live there and who...

Travel across Ontario and pay a visit to Ontario's nearly 50 heritage jails. Built before the modern era of the OPP, they range in size from single cell lockups to massive monuments such as the Kingston Pen and the Don Jail. Although Spartan inside, many are architectural wonders on the outside and have been declared heritage buildings. A few have been converted to museums and show the harsh conditions that convicts had to endure. Behind Bars also...

Few people can resist the appeal of old maps and plans. Even in these days of disposable mapping - from satellite navigation to customized road directions at the click of a mouse - the historical map continues to present a unique perspective on our changing world. Here we explore 25 glorious examples. The emphasis is on the story behind the map: what it reveals about its creator and users, from the first explorers to the railway builders. This thought-provoking...

The 19th century spawned a unique breed of men who took pride in their woodsmen skills and rough codes of conduct. They called themselves lumberers, shantymen, timber beasts, les bucherons – and, more recently, lumberjacks, working in the vast forests of eastern Canada and British Columbia. Across the country, farm boys would go to the woods, lumbering being the only winter work available. Immigrants – Swedes and Finns more often than not –...

Algonquin Wildlife: Lessons in Survival is a celebration of the vast array of wildlife studies ongoing in Ontario's very first provincial park. Probably more research has been done in Algonquin than in any other protected landscape in the world. Norm Quinn, long-time Park Management Biologist in Algonquin, has been fortunate to know and to work with many of those dedicated and unique wildlife researchers who roam and probe the forests and lakes in...

Brockville's origins reach back to the resettlement of Loyalists following the American Revolution and the threat of American encroachment. Following the War of 1812, Brockville, along the St. Lawrence River, benefitted greatly from the rapidly expanding colonization. A centre for the political activity of the day and a focal point for the Orange movement, Brockville was often immersed in controversy. The end of the 19th century was the golden age...

June 1997 marked the opening of the Confederation Bridge which spans the Northumberland Strait and connects Prince Edward Island to New Brunswick. The bridge, designed and built by the international consortium Strait Crossing, is one of the most innovative engineering projects undertaken in Canada. It is the longest bridge ever constructed over ice covered water and one of the longest continuous multi-span bridges in the world. Bridging the Strait...

In a unique analysis of Cuban literature inside and outside the country's borders, Eduardo Gonzalez looks closely at the work of three of the most important contemporary Cuban authors to write in the post-1959 diaspora: Guillermo Cabrera Infante (1929-2005), who left Cuba for good in 1965 and established himself in London; Antonio Benitez-Rojo (1931-2005), who settled in the United States; and Leonardo Padura Fuentes (b. 1955), who still lives and...

Alan Wolfe is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College. His books include The Transformation of American Religion: How We Actually Practice Our Faith (Free Press), An Intellectual in Public, and One Nation, After All (Penguin-Viking). Has America, in its quest for goodness, sacrificed its sense of greatness? In this sharp-witted, historically informed book, veteran political...