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Could it happen here? : Canada in the age of Trump and Brexit / by Adams, Michael,1946 Sept. 29-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."From award-winning author Michael Adams, Could It Happen Here? draws on groundbreaking new social research to show whether Canadian society is at risk of the populist forces afflicting the rest of the world. In vote after shocking vote, Western publics have pushed their anger to the top of their countries' political agendas. The votes have varied in their particulars, but their unifying feature has been rejection of moderation, incrementalism, and the status quo. Britons opted to leave the European Union. Americans elected Donald Trump. Far-right, populist politicians channeling anger at out-of-touch "elites" are gaining ground across Europe. Amid this roiling international scene, Canada appears placid, at least on its surface. As other societies retrench, the international media have taken notice of Canada's welcome of Syrian refugees, its half-female federal cabinet, its acceptance of climate science and mixed efforts to limit its emissions, the absence of a prominent hard-right ethno-nationalist movement. After a year in power, the centrist federal government continues to enjoy majority approval, suggesting an electorate not as bitterly split as the ones to the south or in Europe. As sceptics point out, however, Brexit and a Trump presidency were unthinkable until they happened. Could it be that Canada is not immune to the same forces of populism, social fracture, and backlash that have afflicted other parts? Our largest and most cosmopolitan city elected Rob Ford. Conservative Party leadership hopeful Kellie Leitch proposes a Canadian test for immigrants and has called the Trump victory "exciting." Anti-tax demonstrators in Alberta chanted "lock her up" in reference to Premier Rachel Notley, an elected leader accused of no wrongdoing, only policy positions the protesters disliked. In Could It Happen Here?, pollster and social values researcher Michael Adams takes Canadians into the examining room to see whether we are at risk of coming down with the malaise affecting other Western democracies. Drawing on major social values surveys of Canadians and Americans in 2016--as well as decades of tracking data in both countries--Adams examines our economy, institutions, and demographics to answer the question: could it happen here?"--
Subjects: Demographic surveys; Populism; Social prediction; Social surveys; Social values;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Prisoners of the castle [text (large print)] : an epic story of survival and escape from Colditz, the Nazis' fortress prison / by Macintyre, Ben,1963-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."From the bestselling author of The Spy and the Traitor, a definitive and surprising new narrative of one of history's most famous prisons--and the remarkable cast of POWs who tried to relentlessly escape their Nazi captors. The myth of Colditz, the most infamous prison in history, has stood unchallenged for 70 years: prisoners of war, mustaches firmly set on stiff upper lips, defying the Nazis by tunnelling out of a grim Gothic castle on a German hilltop. Like all legends, that story contains only part of the truth. In Ben Macintyre's brilliant, cliche-smashing new history, he offers a vision of Colditz previously unimagined, a story of much more than an escape, just as the prison's inmates were far more complicated than the cardboard saints depicted in post-war pop culture. Colditz was a miniature replica of office-class society at the time, only far stranger: a lethal, high stakes boarding school surrounded by barbed wire, initially containing prisoners of all Allied nations, including Canada, but eventually only Britons and Americans, a heavily guarded cage with its own culture, eccentricities, and internal tensions. In intimate and compelling detail, Macintyre explores what happens to people when they are locked up without committing a crime and with no idea when or if they might be liberated. Colditz, then, is a tale of the indomitable human spirit, but also one of snobbery, class conflict, hidden sexuality, bullying, espionage, boredom, insanity, and farce. With access to declassified archives, private papers, and never-before-seen photos, the author reveals a remarkable cast of characters, previously hidden from history: Indian doctor Birendranath Mazymdar, the only non-white prisoner, whose ill-treatment, hunger-strike and eventual escape reads like fiction; Florimond Duke, America's oldest paratrooper and least successful secret agent; Christoper Clayton Hutton, the brilliant inventor employed by British intelligence to manufacture escape aids for POWs, from maps hidden in playing cards to a compass secreted inside a walnut; and many others. Bringing together the wartime intrigue of his acclaimed Operation Mincemeat and keen psychological portraits of his bestselling true-life spy stories, Macintyre has breathed stunning new life into one of the greatest war stories ever told."--
Subjects: Large type books.; Schloss Colditz (Colditz, Germany); Prisoner-of-war escapes; Prisoners of war; World War, 1939-1945; World War, 1939-1945;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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