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While Alberta is generally regarded as a conservative province, its early labour movement was class conscious and, for many years had a significant political impact provincially and in many municipalities. The Labour Party, which united trade unions and socialists of every stripe (until its expulsion of the Communists in 1929) reflected the determined independence of Alberta workers: its leaders and members were almost exclusively working-class. But the party was always an uneasy alliance between those who saw politics purely in electoral terms and those who emphasized extra-parliamentary activity. And the election in 1921 of a Farmers' government caused divisions about how closely Labour should work with a non-Labour government. After the purge of the Communists, those who favoured an exclusive concentration on electoral activity and close collaboration with the Farmers, held sway. Their narrow conception of politics turned the Labour Party increasingly into a private preserve of union bureaucrats and created a political vacuum into which Social Credit stepped in.

Coal miners at Bienfait, Saskatchewan, had joined the militant Mine Workers' Union of Canada in 1931. In September of that year they went on strike to win recognition of their union as a prelude to pressing demands for a restoration of wages cut by the local coal operators. --Introduction

This article reviews the book, "Civic Labors: Scholar Activism and Working-Class Studies," edited by Dennis Deslippe, Eric Fure-Slocum, and John W. McKerley.

The article reviews the book, "Radical Ambition: The New Left in Toronto," by Peter Graham and Ian McKay.

The article reviews the book, "The Enchantments of Mammon: How Capitalism Became the Religion of Modernity," by Eugene McCarraher.

The article briefly reviews Doug Smith's "How to Tax a Billionaire: Project Loophole and the Campaign for Tax Fairness;" "The Resilient Outpost: Ecology, Economy, and Society in Rural Newfoundland," edited by Rosemary Ommer; Susan Sleeper-Smith's "Indian Women and French Men: Rethinking Cultural Encounter in the Western Great Lakes;" Mark Franko's "The Work of Dance: Labor, Movement, and Identity in the 1930s;" "Friends of the People: Uneasy Radicals in the Age of the Chartists," by Owen R. Ashton and Paul A. Pickering, ; Steve Wright's "Storming Heaven: Class Composition and Struggle in Italian Autonomist Marxism;" Wendy Z. Goldman's "Women at the Gates: Gender and Industry in Stalin's Russia;" Julie R. Watts's "Immigration Policy and the Challenge to Globalization: Unions and Employers in Unlikely Alliance;" Heidi Tinsman's "Partners in Conflict: The Politics of Gender, Sexuality, and Labor in the Chilean Agrarian Reform, 1950-1973;" Rosa Isolde Reuque Paillalet's "When a Flower Is Reborn: The Life and Times of a Mapuche Feminist," edited and translated by Florencia E. Mallon; and S.A. Smith's "Like Cattle and Horses: Nationalism and Labor in Shanghai, 1895-1927."

The article reviews and comments on severa; books, "Engendering the State: Family, Work, and Welfare in Canada," by Nancy Christie; "The Wages of Sickness: The Politics of Health Insurance in Progressive America, by Beatrix Hoffman; Aux origines sociales de l'État-providence: Familles québécoises, obligation scolaire et allocations familiales, 1940-1955," by Dominique Marshall; and "Poverty Knowledge: Social Science, Social Policy, and the Poor in Twentieth-Century U.S. History," by Alice O'Connor.

The article reviews the book, "J. B. McLachlan: A biography," by David Frank.

The article reviews the book, "Grève et paix. Une histoire des lois spéciales au Québec," by Martin Petitclerc and Martin Robert.

Nation and Society: Readings in Post-Confederation Canadian History offers students a sample of some of the best recent scholarship on the history of Canada since Confederation. The readings are grouped in a combination of time periods and themes that are commonly used in studies of the post-Confederation period: “Inventing Canada, 1867-1914”; “Economy and Society in the Industrial Age, 1867-1918”; “Transitional Years: Canada 1919-1945”; “Reinventing Canada, 1945-1975”; and “Post-Modern Canada.” --Publisher's description. Contents: Pt. 1. Inventing Canada, 1867-1914. Dispossession vs. accomodation in plaintiff vs. defendent accounts of Métis dispersal from Manitoba, 1870-1881 / D.N. Sprague -- Remoulding the constitution / Christopher Armstrong -- "The cititzenship debates": the 1885 Franchise Act / Veronica Strong-Boag -- Categories and terrains of exclusion: constructing the "Indian woman" in the early settlement era of western Canada / Sarah Carter -- Eldorado / William R. Morrison. Pt.2. Economy and society in the industrial age, 1867-1918. "Care, control and supervision": native people in the Canadian Atlantic salmon fishery, 1867-1900 / Bill Parenteau -- Necessary for survival: women and children's labour on prairie homesteads, 1871-1911 / Sandra Rollings-Magnusson -- Exclusion or solidarity? Vancouver workers confront the "Oriental problem" / Gillian Creese -- North of the colour line: sleeping car porters and the battle against Jim Crow on Canadian rails, 1880-1920 / Sarah-Jane (Saje) Mathieu -- Unmaking manly smokes: church, state, governance, and the first anti-smoking campaigns in Montreal, 1892-1914 / Jarrett Rudy -- The roots of modernism: Darwinism and the higher critics / Ramsay Cook -- Remembering armageddon / Jonathan E. Vance. Pt. 3. Transitional years, 1918-1945. Dancing to perdition: adolescence and leisure in interwar English Canada / Cynthia Comacchio -- "The best man that ever worked the lumber": aboriginal longshoremen and Burrard Inlet, BC, 1863-1939 / Andrew Parnaby -- Indispensible but not a citizen: the housewife in the Great Depression / Denyse Baillargeon -- Introduction to Myths, memories and lies: Quebec's intelligentsia and the Fascist temptation, 1939-1960 / Esther Delisle -- Starting into the abyss / J.L. Granatstein. Pt. 4. Reinventing Canada, 1945-1975. Psychology and the construction of the "normal" family in postwar Canada, 1945-1960 / Mona Gleason -- "I'll wrap the f*#@ Canadian flag around me": a nationalist response to plant shutdown, 1962-1984 / Steven High -- "Character weakness" and "fruit machines": towares an analysis of the anti-homosexual security campaign in the Canadian civil service / Gary Kinsman -- People in the way: modernity, environment, and society on the Arrow Lakes / Tina Loo -- A Newfoundland culture? / James Overton -- Allegories and orientations in African-Canadian historiography: the spirit of Africville / James W. St. G. Walker -- "The Rocket": newspaper coverage of the death of a Québec cultural icon, a Canadian hockey player / Howard Ramos and Kevine Gosine. Pt. 5. Post-modern Canada. "This little piggy went to the prairies": growth and opposition to the prairie hog industry / Michael J. Broadway -- Political economy of gender, race, and class: looking at South Asian immigrant women in Canada / Tania Das Gupta -- Rights in the courts, on the water, and in the woods: the aftermath of R. v. Marshall in New Brunswick / Margaret McCallum -- Family policy, child care and social solidarity: the case of Quebec / Jane Jenson -- No exit: racial profiling and Canada's war against terrorism / Reem Bahdi.

Pays homage to the life and work of Walter Hildebrandt (1951-2021), who published historical studies of Indigenous communities in the Canadian West and Indigenous relations with the Canadian state. A historian for Parks Canada, Hildebrandt later became publishing director of the University of Calgary and Athabasca University presses. Includes an appreciation of Hildebrandt's poetry, with selections from three long poems — "Let Them Eat Grass / The Dakota Wars 1862" and "Winnipeg 1919" — that were originally published in the 2016 collection, "Documentaries: Poems." Also introduces three poems by Tom Wayman — "Reply," "When the Future Wore a Mask: My Parents at War" and "Ars Poetica: Nail" — intended as tributes. A photo of Hildebrandt is included.

The work of Bryan D. Palmer, one of North America’s leading historians, has influenced the fields of labour history, social history, discourse analysis, communist history, and Canadian history, as well as the theoretical frameworks surrounding them. Palmer’s work reveals a life dedicated to dissent and the difficult task of imagining alternatives by understanding the past in all of its contradictions, victories, and failures. Dissenting Traditions gathers Palmer’s contemporaries, students, and sometimes critics to examine and expand on the topics and themes that have defined Palmer’s career, from labour history to Marxism and communist politics. Paying attention to Palmer’s participation in key debates, contributors demonstrate that class analysis, labour history, building institutions, and engaging the public are vital for social change. In this moment of increasing precarity and growing class inequality, Palmer’s politically engaged scholarship offers a useful roadmap for scholars and activists alike and underlines the importance of working-class history. --Publisher's description. Contents: Introduction / Sean Carleton, Ted McCoy, and Julia Smith -- Part I. Labour. Bryan D. Palmer, Labour historian / Alvin Finkel -- Bryan D. Palmer, social historian / Ted McCoy -- Labour history’s present: An account of Labour/Le Travail under Bryan D. Palmer / Kirk Niergarth. Part 2. Experience, discourse, class. Bryan D. Palmer and E. P. Thompson / Nicholas Rogers -- On polemics and provocations: Bryan D. Palmer vs. liberal anti-Marxists / Chad Pearson -- Bryan Douglas Palmer, Edward Palmer Thompson, John le Carré (and me): Workers, spies, and spying, past and present / Gregory S. Kealey. Part 3. Politics. Palmer’s politics: Discovering the past and the future of class struggle / Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin -- The hippopotamus and the giraffe: Bolshevism, Stalinism, and American and British Communism in the 1920s / John McIlroy and Alan Campbell -- The June days of 2013 in Brazil and the persistence of top-down histories / Sean Purdy -- Old positions/new directions: Strategies for rebuilding Canadian working-class history / Sean Carleton and Julia Smith -- Afterword: Rude awakenings / Bryan D. Palmer -- Selected Works of Bryan D. Palmer -- List of contributors.