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The article reviews the book, "'Enough to Keep Them Alive':Indian Welfare in Canada, 1873-1965," by Hugh Shewell.

The article reviews the book, "The Myth of the Good War: America in the Second World War," by Jacques R. Pauwels.

The article analyzes scholarly works on the Canadian welfare state since 1979. Works discussed include Dennis Guest's "The Emergence of Social Security in Canada" (1979; 3rd edition, 1997), Jane Ursel's "Private Lives, Public Policy: 100 Years of State Intervention in the Family" (1992), James Struthers' '"The Limits of Affluence: Welfare in Ontario, 1920-1970" (1994), Penny Bryden's "Planners and Politicians: Liberal Politics and Social Policy, 1957-1968" (1997), and Nancy Christie's "Engendering the State: Family, Work, and Welfare in Canada" (2000). Concludes that while there has been important work in a number of areas, "the tendency in the historical and sociological literature to pay more attention to discourse than to political economy has tended to understate class dimensions in the formation of social policy."

The article reviews the book, "Welfare," by Mary Daly.

The article reviews the book, "Influenza 1918: Disease, Death, and Struggle in Winnipeg," by Esyllt W. Jones.

The article reviews the book, "The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better," by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett.

The article reviews the book, "Creating a Failed State: The U.S. and Canada in Afghanistan," by John W. Warnock.

The paper reviews the book, "1939: L 'Alliance de la dernière chance," by Michael Carley, published in English as "The Alliance That Never War."

The article reviews the book, "The World Guide 2001/2002: An Alternative Reference to the Countries of Our Planet."

The article reviews the book, "Politics and Public Debt: The Dominion, the Banks, and Alberta's Social Credit," by Robert L. Ascah.

The article reviews the book, "Major Douglas and Alberta Social Credit," by Bob Hesketh.

The article reviews the book "Seeking the Highest Good: Social Service and Gender at the University of Toronto, 1888-1937," by Sara Z. Burke.

The article reviews the book "A Marriage of Convenience: Business and Social Work in Toronto 1918-1957," by Gale Wills.

The debate about public funding and regulation of childcare has always had as its central focus: should mothers be encouraged or discouraged from seeking paid work outside the home? While some scholars argue that labour needs -- the "reserve army" thesis --best explain resulting public policies regarding childcare, this article argues that campaigns by women's organizations, sometimes aided by mixed-sex progressive social organizations, have been more important in public policy-making. Discourse on paid work for women with children has shifted from 1945 to 1990 from extremely negative to ambivalent. But the Right has limited the impact of women's mobilization for shared state responsibility for childcare by insisting on childcare arrangements as a working mother's responsibility.

The article reviews the book, "Social Classes and Social Credit in Alberta," by Edward Bell.

The article reviews the book, "Populism and Democratic Thought in the Canadian Prairies, 1910-1945," by David Laycock.

Working People in Alberta traces the history of labour in Alberta from the period of First Nations occupation to the present. Drawing on over two hundred interviews with labour leaders, activists, and ordinary working people, as well as on archival records, the volume gives voice to the people who have toiled in Alberta over the centuries. In so doing, it seeks to counter the view of Alberta as a one-class, one-party, one-ideology province, in which distinctions between those who work and those who own are irrelevant. Workers from across the generations tell another tale, of an ongoing collective struggle to improve their economic and social circumstances in the face of a dominant, exploitative elite. Their stories are set within a sequential analysis of provincial politics and economics, supplemented by chapters on women and the labour movement and on minority workers of colour and their quest for social justice. Published on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Alberta Federation of Labour, Working People in Alberta contrasts the stories of workers who were union members and those who were not. In its depictions of union organizing drives, strikes, and working-class life in cities and towns, this lavishly illustrated volume creates a composite portrait of the men and women who have worked to build and sustain the province of Alberta. --Publisher's description. Contents: Introduction : Those who built Alberta -- Millennia of Native work / Alvin Finkel -- The fur trade and early European settlement / Alvin Finkel -- One step forward : Alberta workers, 1885-1914 / Jim Selby -- War, repression, and depression, 1914-1939 / Eric Strikwerda and Alvin Finkel -- Alberta labour and working-class life, 1940-1959 / James Muir -- The boomers become the workers : Alberta, 1960-1980 / Alvin Finkel -- Alberta labour in the 1980s / Winston Gereluk -- Revolution, retrenchment, and the new normal : the 1990s and beyond / Jason Foster -- Women, labour, and the labour movement / Joan Schiebelbein -- Racialization and work / Jennifer Kelly and Dan Cui -- Conclusion : A history to build upon / Alvin Finkel.

Argues that Prime Minister Stephen Harper's effort to reshape understandings of history and national identity, such as the $28 million celebration of the War of 1812, is consistent with Conservative government's "illiberal" agenda for the country going forward. Discusses the research strategy of the Canadian Museum of History, which focuses on the world wars and Confederation rather than working people, as well as the government's labour record.

In the period following World War II, Alberta's Social Credit government passed several pieces of restrictive legislation which limited labour's ability to organize workers and to call strikes. The enforcement of labour law also reflected an anti-union bias. This article argues that Social Crediters, who had a penchant for conspiracy theories, believed that union militancy was the product of the manoeuverings of an international communist conspiracy. Their labour legislation was intended to foil the conspiracy's plans in Alberta and incidentally to reassure potential investors, particularly in the oil patch, of a good climate for profit-taking. But the path for such legislation was made smoother by the conservatism of one wing of the labour movement in the province and the fear of being tarnished with the communist brush by the other wing. On the whole, the Alberta experience casts a grim reflection on the theory that the post-war period provided a measure of industrial democracy for Canadian workers.

This article reviews the book, "Divisions of Labour: Skilled Workers and Technological Change in Nineteenth Century Britain," by Royden Harrison & Jonathan Zeitlin, edited.