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Booze, cigarettes, and constitutional dust-ups : Canada's quest for interprovincial free trade / by Manucha, Ryan,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."Gerard Comeau, a retiree living in rural New Brunswick, never thought his booze run would turn him into a Canadian hero. In 2012, after Comeau had driven to Quebec to purchase cheaper beer and crossed back into his home province, police officers participating in a low-stakes sting operation tailed and detained him, confiscated his haul, and levied a fine of less than 300 dollars. Countries routinely engage in trade wars and erect barriers to protect domestic industries from foreign competition. Comeau, however, was detained by the full force of the law for engaging in commerce with a Canadian business on the other side of a domestic border. With Comeau's story as its starting point, Booze, Cigarettes, and Constitutional Dust-Ups tells the fascinating tale of Canadian interprovincial trade. Ryan Manucha examines the historical, political, and legal forces that gave rise to the regulation of interprovincial commerce in Canada, the trade-offs that come with liberalized domestic free trade, and Canada's enduring pursuit of economic union. The pandemic laid bare the vulnerability of global supply chains, the fickleness of foreign trading partners, and the surprising slipperiness of domestic trade. In a global climate of increasingly isolationist geopolitics, the history and possibility of Canada's economic union, quirks and all, deserve careful attention."--
Subjects: Free trade; Free trade; Interstate commerce; Interprovincial commerce;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The myth of American idealism : how U.S. foreign policy endangers the world / by Chomsky, Noam,author.; Robinson, Nathan J.,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."The Myth of American Idealism offers a timely and comprehensive introduction to the incisive critiques of U.S. power that have made Noam Chomsky a "global phenomenon," one of the most widely known public intellectuals of all time. Surveying the history of U.S. military and economic activity around the world, Chomsky and his co-author Nathan J. Robinson vividly trace the way the American pursuit of global domination has wrought havoc in country after country-without, ironically, making Americans any safer. And they explore how dominant elites in the United States have pushed self-serving myths about this country's commitment to "spreading democracy," while pursuing a reckless foreign policy that served the interest of few and endangered all too many. Chomsky and Robinson range across the globe, offering penetrating accounts of Washington's relationship with the Global South, its role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -all justified with noble stories about humanitarian missions and the benevolent intentions of American policy makers. The same kinds of myths that have led to repeated disastrous wars, they argue, are now driving us closer to wars with Russia and China that imperil humanity's future. Examining nuclear proliferation and climate change, they show how U.S. policies are continuing to exacerbate global threats. For well over half a century, Noam Chomsky has committed himself to exposing governing ideologies and criticizing his country's unchecked use of military power. At once thorough and devastating, urgent and provocative, The Myth of American Idealism offers a highly readable entry to the conclusions he has come to after a lifetime of thought and activism"--
Subjects: Hegemony; Idealism.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Hope is a woman's name : my journey as a Bedouin Palestinian activist in Israel / by El'Sana-Alh'jooj, Amal,author.;
"At birth it was only Amal's father who looked at her and said "I see hope in her face. I want to call her 'Amal' -- meaning 'Hope' -- in the hope that Allah will give us boys after her." The fifth daughter in a patriarchal society and an indigenous Bedouin in a Jewish state, Amal Elsana came into this world fighting for her right to exist. Today she is a key shaper of public opinion on Israel's marginalized minorities. Hope is a Woman's Name tells of Amal's journey navigating interweaving systems of power and oppression -- the patriarchal and the nationalist -- in her fight for justice and equality. As a shepherd at the age of 5, she led her flock across the green mountains of Laqiya, her village in the Negev in southern Israel, and later ran literacy classes for the women in her tribe in her early teens, the beginning of a lifelong career organizing people to promote policy change for Israel's Bedouin, a minority within the Palestinian minority. She later established economic empowerment programs for marginalized women, helping to found an Arab-Jewish school, and creating organizations to promote shared society. Where others come up against obstacles, Amal builds bridges; not by sacrificing her identity, but by embracing it. Each thread of her identity -- Bedouin, Arab, woman, feminist, Palestinian and Israeli -- is woven into the tent of her life, a tent where no one is left out in the sun."--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; El'Sana-Alh'jooj, Amal.; Bedouins; Feminists; Minorities; Palestinian Arabs; Political activists; Women, Bedouin; Women, Palestinian Arab; Women's rights;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The raging 2020s : companies, countries, people--and the fight for our future / by Ross, Alec,1971-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."For 150 years, there has been a contract. Companies hold the power to shape our daily lives. The state holds the power to make them fall in line. And the people hold the power to choose their leaders. But now, this balance has shaken loose. As the market consolidates, the lines between Walmart and the Halls of Congress have become razor-thin. Private companies have begun to behave like nations, and with the government bogged down in bureaucratic negotiations and partisan wars, people look to nimble, powerful firms to solve societal problems-and to be our moral standard-bearers. As Walter Isaacson said about Ross's first book, "The future is already hitting us, and Ross shows how it can be exciting rather than frightening." Through interviews with the world's most influential thinkers and stories of corporate activism and malfeasance, government failure and renewal, and innovative economic and political models, Alec Ross proposes a new social contract-one that resets the equilibrium between corporations, the governing, and the governed"--
Subjects: Corporate power; Business and politics; Corporations;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Days of fire : Bush and Cheney in the White House / by Baker, Peter,1967-;
Includes bibliographical references and index."From the senior White House correspondent for The New York Times comes the definitive history of the Bush and Cheney White House. Taking readers into the offices of the West Wing and the cabins of Air Force One, Peter Baker tells the gripping inside story of the Bush and Cheney era. Theirs was the most fascinating American partnership since Nixon and Kissinger, an untested president and his seasoned vice president confronted by one crisis after another as they struggled to protect the country, remake the world, and define their own relationship along the way. Packed with revealing anecdotes and told with in-the-room immediacy, Days of Fire narrates two profoundly significant and conflicted terms marked by 9/11, Iraq, Katrina, jihad, nuclear proliferation, genocide, and economic collapse. George W. Bush was one of the most polarizing presidents of our time, jettisoning decades of foreign policy pragmatism to redefine America's mission as a crusade to bring freedom to the world. Yet his early dream of transforming Republicans into the party of "compassionate conservatism" and building an "ownership society" were dashed by two consuming wars and a devastating financial crash. At his side was Dick Cheney, the trusted adviser who became the most influential vice president in history only to watch as Bush drifted away, leaving the two at odds over a wide array of fundamental issues. Baker's interviews with more than two hundred players--White House aides, cabinet secretaries, generals, senators and congressmen, relatives and friends of both men--help reveal the truth of their complicated and shifting relationship. Days of Fire is the first book to capture in a truly defining way all eight years of the most consequential presidency in a generation"--Provided by publisher.
Subjects: Bush, George W. (George Walker), 1946-; Cheney, Richard B.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Heist by Causey, Frances,filmmaker; Goldmacher, Donald,filmmaker; Donald Goldmacher (Firm),dst; Kanopy (Firm),dst;
Bernie Sanders, Van Jones, David Cay Johnson, Nomi Prins, Robert Crandall, Robert KuttnerOriginally produced by Donald Goldmacher in 2011.This investigative documentary reveals how American corporations orchestrated the dismantling of middle-class prosperity through rampant deregulation, the outsourcing of jobs, and tax policies favoring businesses and the wealthy. HEIST exposes the roots of the American economic crisis and the destruction of the American dream.. The collapse of the U.S. economy is the result of conscious choices made over thirty five years by a small group: leaders of corporations and their elected allies, and the biggest lobbying interest in Washington, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. To these individuals, the collapse is not a catastrophe, but rather the planned outcome of their long, patient work. For the rest of the country, it is merely the biggest heist in American history.. "(HEIST) has the virtue of taking the long view of a crisis that recent films like INSIDE JOB and TOO BIG TO FAIL have only sketchily explored. It makes a strong case that government regulation of business is essential for democracy to flourish." — Stephen Holden, The New York Times. "Wherever one's politics fall on the spectrum, there is much in here — such as a maddening video Filmclip in which an American law firm offers counsel on how to avoid hiring American workers — likely to give one pause." — Mindy Farabee, L.A. TimesMode of access: World Wide Web.
Subjects: North American Studies; Documentary films. ; Globalization; Politics;
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A history of the world in six plagues : how contagion, class, and captivity shaped us, from Cholera to COVID-19 / by Bonhomme, Edna,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."Epidemic diseases enter the world by chance, but they become catastrophic by human design. With clear-eyed research and lush prose, A History of the World in Six Plagues shows that throughout history, outbreaks of disease have been exacerbated by and gone on to further expand the racial, economic, and sociopolitical divides we allow to fester in times of good health. Princeton-trained historian Edna Bonhomme's examination of humanity's disastrous treatment of pandemic disease takes us across place and time from Port-au-Prince to Tanzania, and from plantation-era America to our modern COVID-19-scarred world to unravel shocking truths about the patterns of discrimination in the face of disease. Based on in-depth research and cultural analysis, Bonhomme explores Cholera, HIV/AIDS, the Spanish Flu, Sleeping Sickness, Ebola, and COVID-19 amidst the backdrop of unequal public policy. But much more than a remarkable history, A History of the World in Six Plagues is also a rising call for change"--
Subjects: Communicable diseases; Diseases and history.; Epidemics; Plague;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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2020 : one city, seven people, and the year everything changed / by Klinenberg, Eric,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."Crisis has a way of laying bare our truest selves: who we trust, which principles and impulses we heed, whose lives we deem expendable. As it ravaged millions of lives, the Covid-19 pandemic revealed and accentuated the dividing lines that had already, for decades, splintered American public life. Against the backdrop of the 2020 presidential election, misinformation regimes, and the transformation of the facemask into a flagrant political symbol, acclaimed sociologist Eric Klinenberg takes careful inventory of how the U.S. and other nations handled the extraordinary challenges of that seminal year. Any autopsy searches for causes, and in this book, Klinenberg uses seven people's piercingly vivid reflections to examine how communities across the globe reckoned with the profound tragedy and loss of 2020-and how they built networks of solidarity in an attempt to survive. We move from the gross negligence in Canadian for-profit nursing homes, to England's gradualist approach to instating robust Covid safety protocols, to early policy innovations in Australia, South Korea, and Taiwan, which dramatically curtailed the virus' spread. According to Klinenberg, our capacity to bear witness to the rampant failures and successful models of resilience of 2020 will help shape our responses to the escalating climate emergency, the ongoing fight for racial justice, and widening global economic disparities. This book is both mirror and roadmap-a reflection of the social divisions that plague our world and a set of principles for how we might approach the next global catastrophe differently"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Personal narratives.; COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020-; Equality; Presidents; Social history;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The big fix : how companies capture markets and harm Canadians / by Hearn, Denise,1986-author.; Bednar, Vass,author.;
Includes bibliographical references."More and more of the Canadian economy is dominated by a handful of huge companies that control what we buy, how we work, and which other businesses can or can't thrive. Beyond the obvious examples of airlines, telcos, grocery chains, and banks, The Big Fix: How Companies Capture Markets and Harm Canadians shows how corporate concentration is growing across many industries, leading to higher prices for consumers, lower worker's wages, more inequality, fewer startups, less innovation, and lower growth and productivity. In this galvanizing book, Hearn and Bednar show how companies perpetuate the illusion of rivalry to disguise their dominance, and how they've shifted from competing within industries to accumulating assets across industries, further entrenching their power. The authors coach readers on how to think about competition, how markets are made and remade, and how the right set of attitudes and policies reduce corporate power and rebalance it throughout the economy. The future of Canada's economy is up for grabs, and The Big Fix shows how the country can achieve a more innovative, productive, and livable economy for all Canadians."--
Subjects: Competition; Corporate power; Corporations; Corporations;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The Weimar years : rise and fall 1918-1933 / by McDonough, Frank,1957-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index.Established in 1918-19, in the wake of Germany's catastrophic defeat in the First World War and the revolution that followed swiftly on its heels, the Weimar Republic ushered in widespread social reform, a radical cultural flowering and the most democratic conditions the German people had ever known. At its beginning, Weimar held out the hope that democracy, stability and prosperity would take root in Germany, but it was beset by frequent changes of government, waves of economic upheaval and spasms of violence of increasing intensity between the forces of left and right. Agitation and assassination by right-wing nationalists -- enraged by the severity of the Treaty of Versailles and the acceptance of its terms by liberal German politicians -- formed a threatening descant to the conciliatory efforts of successive coalition governments. Ultimately, the instabilities of Weimar would lead to the appointment as German Chancellor of the Nazi Fuhrer Adolf Hitler, who created a one-party dictatorship that abandoned the rule of law, democracy and civil rights. In the words of Gustav Stresemann, Germany's Nobel Peace Prize-winning Foreign Minister from 1923 to 1929, Weimar democracy was 'dancing on a volcano'. The Weimar Years is a vivid and compelling narrative of a dramatic period in German history. Year by year, from 1918 to 1933, Frank McDonough covers the major events in both domestic and foreign policy and the personalities who shaped them, together with developments in music, art, theatre and literature. McDonough places particular focus on the parliamentary history of Weimar, arguing that it was the failure of parliamentary democracy to bring stability that eroded public confidence and allowed the power of the elected Reichstag to gradually diminish, culminating in Hitler's accession to power in January 1933. The Weimar Years is the tragic story of a rise and fall, as well as a warning of how, under poor leadership, economic pressure and unrelenting political volatility, a democracy can drift towards a form of authoritarian rule that eventually destroys it.
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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