George Orwell famously sought to make writing on politics into an art. It’s important to remember that he wasn’t the only one. So too did a radically different kind of writer, the cocksure American Gore Vidal. I bring up Orwell because I continue to ponder the notion that his dystopian novel 1984 … [Read more...]
The Rule of Law: Two Notable Supreme Court Decisions to Celebrate
The concept of the rule of law and the need to strictly comply with it is often presented with a flourish in legal and political debates. Canadians know that the rule of law is manifestly a good thing. We might, though, have some difficulty pinning it down. Surely, the growing recognition that … [Read more...]
1984 and None Turn Back: Two Timely Novels
George Orwell’s dystopian classic, 1984, published less than a year before the English novelist and journalist’s untimely death in 1950, has had extraordinary staying power. Indeed, twice in recent times it has raced up the bestsellers lists, to the Number 1 position at Amazon in 2013 after the … [Read more...]
A Long Way From Plato
Canada is in the process of following the lead of other nations like Britain and Germany which have committed to pardoning and /or apologizing to large numbers of men who were criminally convicted in past decades for engaging in homosexual acts. The German government has determined that it will … [Read more...]
Stalin The Magician
I have been organizing a human rights film series for the past year, and leading discussions with the audience after the showing. For one of these discussions, I had with me (through Skype) the distinguished writer Stephen Heighton, and we talked about his novel Every Lost Country, set in Tibet and … [Read more...]
Stranger Than We Can Imagine
Stranger Than We Can Imagine – John Higgs’s intriguing and unique tour of the 20th Century. I recommend to readers trying to make sense of the tumultuous twentieth century a fresh historical take – John Higgs’s Stranger Than We Can Imagine: An Alternative History of the Twentieth Century. Its … [Read more...]
Extraordinary Criminal at the Heart of The Man Without Qualities
At our recent meeting of the Who Killed D’Arcy McGee History Club in the hospitable surroundings of the Russian Tea Room in downtown Edmonton we were discussing the early thrillers of Graham Greene, including his short novel The Third Man. Greene had written it after a journey to a bombed and … [Read more...]
Stranger Than We Can Imagine
Stranger Than We Can Imagine – John Higgs’s intriguing and unique tour of the 20th Century. I recommend to readers trying to make sense of the tumultuous twentieth century a fresh historical take – John Higgs’s Stranger Than We Can Imagine: An Alternative History of the Twentieth Century. Its … [Read more...]
The Best We Can Do? – Sybille Bedford’s Classic Account of a Famous British Murder Trial
During Canada’s most talked about court case of the year, the sexual assault trials of Jian Ghomeshi, defence counsel Marie Heinen in her final argument quoted the American jurist John Wigmore. He memorably stated that cross-examination in a trial is the greatest legal engine for the discovery of … [Read more...]
The Peterloo Massacre and Shelley’s Great Poem The Mask of Anarchy
I note that The Guardian newspaper features an interview with Mike Leigh, director of a number of superb films like High Hopes, Vera Drake, and Mr Turner, indicating that his next project will be a dramatization of the infamous 1819 Manchester massacre, a traumatic event in British history. The … [Read more...]
