When the CJC socks meet BCL - left on left for fun
The sparks fly…How can Potter like that poopy head Ezra? It’s not about “hate speech, its about standards”...an entire comment thread of unctuous hilarity as the left hand doesn’t know what the other left hand is doing and how in holy blazes Ezra’s book is #2 on the best seller lists.
April 14th, 2009 at 2:01 am
2nd on the best sellers list but accomplishing nothing on the political level, either federally or provincially.
Fine trade by me.
April 14th, 2009 at 3:58 am
Comments aside, it’s strange that BCL would promote stormfront in that manner…
April 14th, 2009 at 8:41 am
BCL, at the moment the Alberta Legislature is looking at repeal, a Commons Committee is looking at repeal and a DOJ task force is looking at repeal. The CPC voted 99% for repeal. Politics, unfortunately, takes time. Meanwhile, the CHRC have become born again Taylor believers which, while it does not excuse past conduct nor weakens the argument for s. 13 repeal, does mean that a) essentially stupid complaints are being rejected, b) Stacy and the rest of the Hate Speech unit have been reined in.
Finally, the Tribunal itself has clobbered Lucy and his tactics.
Not bad for a bunch of bloggers.
Meanwhile, as Ezra’s book is read and reviewed, almost entirely favourably, the necessary consensus for the repeal of s. 13 grows. Unlike the Jackal and Lucy for whom the cheap shot and the press release by way of lawsuit are ends in themselves, we’re in this for the long game.
April 14th, 2009 at 11:56 am
How can anyone read Shakedown and still be a cheerleader for The Commish? To defend these “courts” capable of bankrupting a victim unable to pay for a lawyer does not sound very liberal. Bigcitylib and Co. are on the wrong side of this debate. This is not a “Conservative, Liberal” issue as I don’t believe the CHRC’s will ask for your party card before they ream you with their 100% conviction rate!
April 14th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
“Comments aside, it’s strange that BCL would promote stormfront in that manner”
Could be Mr. Evans that one of his flock is one of the largest contributing member of it :) and we all know the CHRC must well be into a senior contributing member status :)
April 14th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
The CHRC are not born again, they are keeping their heads down trying to figure out how to get the government to “change” them, meaning more money, more staff and more legislation to better define “human rights”. They intend to present themselves as part of the “solution” to the outrageous behaviour they have indulged in for 30 years.
Fire. Them. All.
April 14th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
Rob H, I think that is possible, however I believe there is something far more nefarious and sinister behind it all (surprised Dawg has not run with it). Bare with my “Spy vs. Spy” Fixation. My apologies to any Blog Owners who keep hearing it.
Behavior by any other government/department and agency (especially after the comments by CHRT chair Mr.Lustig) would have resulted in a top down review years ago, the investigation, discipline and firing of staff and especially ex-staff for conduct that verges on criminal/contempt of court, conspiracy, perjury and the possible list goes on.
The “Army of Davids’” as Ezra calls it – has written hundreds if not thousands of E Mails to the PM, Minister of Justice, MPs, and so on and so on. The end result is absolutely nothing. A RCMP investigation of posts at Stormfront could not proceed as the likely hood of cooperation by the site owner was considered unlikely :O Similarly the Privacy Commissioner found no wrong doing – well couldn’t find something?
E Mails have been sent to DND, the RCMP and many others and the result is a stone wall/the collective Cone of silence – not only by the CPC party but the NDP and LPC as well.
The only reasonable rationale is that this whole 13.1 witch-hunt goes back to the “Heritage Front Affair” – a failed first attempt by CSIS.
Kevin Steele had done a great chronicle of the players, names (read like a CHRT hearing) and dates and I believe he has missed only 1 possible infiltrator whom shortly after the SIRC hearing (the ARA refused to participate in) took a sabbatical abroad (in) :-S.
Thus, my conspiracy theory/reasoning goes that all parties have a vested interest in not having a high profile inquiry that will name names and so that may not reflect well on the fledgling Spy Agency. The CHRC thus acted as an agent of the intelligence state in activities CSIS could not as these were/are citizens of Canada.
Let the PM prove me wrong :-D
April 14th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
I have never met anyone so deeply rooted in denial as BCL.
April 14th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
“...left hand doesn’t know what the other left hand is doing…” – heh
It must kill them that we had a sold-out event Monday—and that’s saying something for London (trust me—I’ve lived her for nearly 30 years).
April 14th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
“BCL, at the moment the Alberta Legislature is looking at repeal, a Commons Committee is looking at repeal and a DOJ task force is looking at repeal.”
The Alberta Legislature has deferred the discussion indefinitely.
A Commons Committee has deferred all discussion because the Tory pushing the idea had second thoughts.
The DOJ task force is nowhere.
The Tories are also looking at fetal-rights laws and killing the Gun Registry. You notice they’re going about all this in a manner that’s bound to fail. Remind of any similar issues that make the base drool but revolt everyone else?
You’re being played.
April 14th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
“I have never met anyone so deeply rooted in denial as BCL.”
Well, with an ice age coming it makes sense that the dinosaurs will, again, face extinction.
April 14th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
BCL -
Thanks for your sage advice.
Spoken like the partisan hack you’ve always been.
Hard to believe you still have the nerve to opine about anything
after embarrassing yourself over the Blue Book.
BTW, did you ever hear back form the UC prof?
Didn’t think so. What a joke.
April 15th, 2009 at 6:40 am
Craig,
I assume from your resort to ad hominem that you recognize that BCL is probably right; the political costs of removing hate speech provisions (which primarily effect folks who have Stormfront as their home page) outweigh any political gains, whatever the merits of the arguments supporting such a change. Even with the cover provided by Prof. Moon recommendation, I don’t see HarperCons taking on the challenge any time soon.
The grander project put forward by the likes of Levant and Five Feet of Pig Ignorance—the complete elimination of human rights commissions and tribunals and the transfer of jurisdiction to the ordinary courts, or in the case of FFPI, the elimination of human rights law generally because, hey, discrimination is a left-wing myth—is even less likely to happen, no matter how many right-wing true believers you pack into “debates”. The human rights system, which provides for mediation as a well as a adjudication, is far more efficient – cheaper and faster – than the ordinary courts, and produces better and fairer results most of the time. In any event, the ordinary courts have their hands full with criminals, civil litigants and matters of greater economic value.
The other reasons it won’t happen is that Levant’s claims about the human rights system don’t stand up to close scrutiny. So far all the reviews have been by gullible journalists who learned everything they know about human rights law from, well, Levant. (Rex Murphy was so grateful that he made Ezra an MP, a promotion seconded in the equally ridiculous review by Paul Sullivan of Metro.)Funny that nobody has assigned the review to someone familiar with the system—say, a lawyer who practices in the area.
Potter, to his credit, shows a least a measure of skepticism about the Levant’s claims (over at More Notes From Underground, the review is accurately summarized as “This is a poorly argued, self-aggrandizing work that you should read because it’s an important topic.”) , but ultimately falls for the “process is the punishment” bullshit that Levant is peddling.
A lawyer familar with both tribunals and ordinary courts is unlikely to be as accepting of Levant’s claims. $100,000 in legal fees without even going to hearing? Unlikely. “Summoned to an interrogation”? Puhleeze, he was invited to respond to a complaint.
A lawyer might also take the time to check some of Levant’s “facts” (although last I looked, journalist were supposed to be in the fact-checking business.)
Case in point: in his introduction, Levant refers to Nixon v. Rape Relief, the case in which a transexual (i.e. a legal woman) complained to the BCHRC after being denied training as a peer counsellor. Levant describes the complainant, Kimberley Nixon as “emotionally unstable” and speaks of the “anguished pleas of the rape victims themselves”. Bullshit.
There is no record in either of these “facts” of any of decision in this case, which went to the Court of
Appeal and was ultimately denied leave to appeal to the SCC. There is no evidence that Nixon was unstable. No “anguished pleas of the rape victims” were entered into evidence. In fact, Nixon had previously worked successfully as a peer counsellor for battered women. And any objections to Nixon came from Rape Relief volunteers, radical feminists who believed that Nixon was not qualified because she had not experienced the life-long oppression that was the lot of women in our society, not from victims. Indeed, the record showed that Rape Relief’s policies did not permit victims to pick and choose their counsellors; for example, it would not allow a client to reject a counsellor because the counsellor was a lesbian.
April 15th, 2009 at 11:18 am
Funny how the guy who can say:
I assume from your resort to ad hominem that you recognize that BCL is probably right;
can say only a few lines later:
The grander project put forward by the likes of Levant and Five Feet of Pig Ignorance
Was there an award for hypocrisy you were going for?
April 15th, 2009 at 11:52 am
Thanks, Caligula. TW is not exactly known for punching above the belt.
And my resort to ad homenem with BCL is well-deserved. How he can pontificate about anything
of substance after Steyn gave him the smack-down of a lifetime is beyond me.
TW - I agree that Ezra’s book is polemical at times.
But your defense of the HRCs as paragons of efficiency and fairness is risible.
As in:
“The human rights system, which provides for mediation as a well as a adjudication, is far more efficient – cheaper and faster – than the ordinary courts, and produces better and fairer results most of the time.”
Are you frickin’ serious? Care to provide some evidence to back that up?
April 15th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
Craig, there may be some argument that properly constituted Tribunals are effective in dealing with discrimination questions – though that argument would have to deal with the uncertainty which is created by the HRC’s piecemeal jurisprudence and lax evidentiary standards as well as the fact that in many cases the Commissions have carriage of a matter making the proceedings rather one sided – but all these arguments are beside the free speech point.
The argument with respect to free speech is that any regime which restricts a fundamental right should only do so – if it should do so at all – while offering the full protections of the criminal law to an accused. Because here the state is proposing to take away a constitutionally enshrined right.
April 15th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
All I can say Jay, is your a better man than I by putting up with that wet thorn in the butt BCL.
I want to see all the HRC’s in the unemployment line period.
By their persecutions they have forfited any mercy. In fact I figure those who where most abused ought to be recompensed.
April 15th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
Jay,
I am skeptical about how well the HRCs deal with discrimination cases. Even their staunchest defenders have conceded that procedurally they are a mess – given the lack of due process, vague evidentiary standards, long delays to get to a hearing, the funding of complainants but not the defendants, I doubt that employers or landlords get anything remotely like a fair shake.
But our friend, TW, seems determined to see and hear no evil. Much easier to slander Ezra and Kathy, I guess. Although we don’t know the identity of this on-line Solon, I am beginning to wonder if he’s not an employee of one of these Star Chambers.
April 15th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
Craig,
What is it about the phrase “ad hominem” that you whinging right-wingers don’t understand? Calling someone names may be many things—Jay, for example, seems to think it is the height of wit, at least when it comes to Kinsella—but it’s not argument ad hominem. Dismissing someone’s argument because of who they are, now that’s ad hominem. BCL may be a “hack” but his observation on the political realities surrounding HRC’s is fairly astute. Sorry that it upset you professor.
My observations on the Human Rights system seems to have had an equivalent effect. I am indeed “frickin’ serious”. Unlike you, I’ve spent time in court. I know how much it costs and how it works. Ordinary courts are ill-suited to dealing with discrimination claims and, frankly, have no interest in taking the jurisdiction from HRTs.
As for evidence as the efficacy of the HRC system, here are some numbers from the Ontario HRC. These date from 2006-07:
Contacts with the public: approx: 43, 000
New files opened: 2,377
Complaints dismissed on preliminary objection: 7.1 %
Complaints resolved by early mediation without investigation: 30.9%
Complaints dismissed at the investigation stage: 11.5%
Cases resolved by the parties: 16.5%
Cases dismissed because of insufficient evidence to warrant a hearing: 8.9%
Cases proceeding to hearing 6.6%
Add to that the fact that HRT commissioners make less than half the salary of judges, that the less formal rules of evidence (or, as Jay would have it, “lax evidentiary standards”) allow businesses and individuals to proceed without counsel in many cases, that the commission provides mediation services that parties would otherwise have to pay for, and you have a system that deal with complaints about discrimination is manner that is more cost-effective and less confrontational than would occur in the ordinary courts.
Jay is, of course, correct that saying the system works well on discrimination cases doesn’t really answer the “free speech point”.
He is not, however, correct in saying that “any regime which restricts a fundamental right should only do so – if it should do so at all – while offering the full protections of the criminal law to an accused.” As I never tire of pointing out, libel law takes away the same constitutionally enshrined right, and does so, not only on the civil standard of balance of probabilities, but also on the basis of a legal presumption that amounts to a reverse onus.
Human rights legislation has nothing in common with criminal law—either in its purpose or its consequences. To draw the comparison displays a wilful ignorance – but then wilful ignorance seems to be fashion of the day among the speechers.
April 16th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
TW - any legal “system” that can cost a small businessmen (say like Gator Ted’s) thousands of dollars in legal fees (or maybe tens of thousands) because he complied with his province’s liquor and licensing laws (or had the temerity to decide who could have a shower with the women at the gym he owns) is in dire need of reform.
And your stats – provided without any citation, natch – tell me nothing about the cost and time it takes to extricate oneself from the clutches of these Kangaroo courts. Nor do they enlighten me about the justice of paying for the complainants’ tab but not the defendants. Or why the socks and Elmo could get standing in B.C. even though none of them live there (the fact that a very shy complainant did reside in my home province hardly makes this jurisdiction shopping any fairer). Or, most egregiously, why complainants can file the same complaint in multiple jurisdictions.
I find it odd that the Lyin’ Jackal, Professor Moon, B’nai Brith (among others) all agree that the HRCs need serious procedural reform, yet you continue to flack for them.
Until you get your head out of the sand (or out of your posterior) you really have no credibility on this issue, no matter how much you claim to be a big-shot lawyer-cum-journalist. At least Ezra and Kathy (who you so enjoy maligning) blog under their own names.
PS C’mon, level with us. Your real name is either Warman or Vigna, right?
April 16th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
BCL is probably right, you are being played. The Tories might find the HRC an equally useful fief with which to reward their partisans. Some time in the not too distant future you might see tenants and customers trying to defend their “hate crimes” before landlord favouring commissions. Appointing some conservative partisans to man the HRCs will be all it takes. Discrimination is a value judgement made on the bias of the HRC commission, change the commissioners and the Tories can create a just society free of human rights abuses.
April 16th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
Craig,
The stats come from the OHRC’s 2006-2007 annual report. Where else do you think they came from?
Beyond that, I see that you’ve joined Levant is distorting the facts about various cases and about procedural issues. Or maybe you just don’t understand them. You pass yourself off as a professor. Are you sure you’re not really a janitor? I wonder, given your inability to research any of this. Then again, I believe you spent time at the Fraser Institute, which usually destroys any ability for independent thought.
Oh, where to begin?
The fact that the Ontario Liquor Board’s regulations don’t accomodate medical marijuana is a problem with those regulations, not with the human rights legislation. And let’s be clear: Gator Ted didn’t give the toker the boot in an effort comply with those regs. The problem with the regs emerged only when he tried to settle the complaint.
Shaidle, for all her pig ignorance, at least has the honesty to admit that she’s all for discrimination. (If it existed – she claims it’s all a big leftist myth). If I read her correctly, the real flaw in human rights law is not procedural clumsiness or jurisdictional overreach, but that it infringes on those most sacred of rights—property rights. In her view, if a business owner doesn’t want to serve or rent to a wop, a mick or a nigger (or a dyke or fag or gimp or retard) that should be his right and the state has no business interfering. It’s the ugly side of the libertarian agenda (softened only by the unproven claim that “the market” will magically eliminate bigotry). Are you on that side too, Mr. Janitor?
BTW, I’m just a lawyer. Not a big-shot lawyer, not a big-shot-lawyer-cum-journalist. Just a lawyer. You can call me Mr. Robinette, if that makes you happy.
April 16th, 2009 at 9:28 pm
TW - are you denying that human rights complaints are costly for defendants? I did do research on this in the mid-90s at the “evil” FI, and the people we surveyed had spent at least 5 figures before any hearing was held (btw, I agree with you that Ezra’s $100K claim sounds bogus). Now maybe that’s a price we have to pay to eradicate discrimination from society, but surely there is room for some reforms, no? Or do you think it’s OK that complainants can go file the same case in multiple jurisdictions. Or that they get their costs covered but the defendant doesn’t?
BTW, It’s my understanding that B’nai Brith has called for procedural reforms. I know the Lyin Jackal has (for what that’s worth). And Moon did too. And so what if they are only referring to section 13 cases? According to you, not even those need reform!
As for your ill-informed claim about markets and discrimination, have you ever read Gary Becker’s work on this? You might have heard of him. He later won something called a Nobel Prize. Or that of Tom Sowell? Or Jenifer Roback? (all in peer-reviewed journals or from scholarly presses). They don’t claim that markets “solve” discrimination. But they do make a good case that in a free market there is an incentive to (on the margin) be less bigoted than your competitors. And as Roback shows in her essay on private street cars in the late 19th south, it was local governments and not “markets” which excluded blacks from service. Indeed, the authorities passed restrictive ordinances precisely because the street car companies were too busy treating blacks as paying customers.
I would also argue that there’s a deeply paradoxical aspect of anti-discrimination laws: if you can get them through democratic legislatures, you are most likely living in a society that has little need of them. And vice versa. This doesn’t mean they don’t serve some educative purpose. But it’s hardly the case that they are all that stand between us and apartheid.
I am sorry if I don’t have time to cite chapter and verse on all of this. I have more pressing things to get done at the moment, namely the last chapter of my book on the American Revolution. In case you were wondering, they left the empire. And I still have to clean the toilets on the 5th floor.
April 17th, 2009 at 6:13 am
Nice logic Truewest, comparing a substance that is illegal for 99.9% of Canadians to a life saving medicine. Breastfeeding or insulin injecting do not fill the room with putrid and cancer causing smoke. Also, 99.9% of breastfeeding mothers and insulin injecting diabetics have the brains not to do so in the middle of a pub.
April 17th, 2009 at 6:48 am
Craig,
While I have not immersed myself in the literature, I appreciate that the market may provide some counterweight against discrimination on a broad scale. It is, however, less effective at dealing with individual cases of discrimination. Likewise, while a society that passes anti-discrimination statutes may – and I stress “may” – be less inclined to suffer from discrimination generally, the statute does more than educate – it creates rights and obligations between employers and employees, landlords and renters, and those who provide services to public and prospective customers.
For example, the woman who is fired after 23 years of loyal service because her employer won’t accomodate her recently developed medical condition will take no comfort in the knowledge that competition for workers or customers or renters provides an incentive to businesses not to discriminate. Human rights law does provide that comfort, by imposing a requirement, above and beyond the contract between employer and employee, that the employer accomodate disabilities to the point of undue hardship.
I am not arguing that human rights complaints are not costly to defendants. I am arguing that the process is far more economical than one that proceeds through the ordinary courts – orders of magnitude more economical in some cases. As for reform, the process is forever being reformed. BC, for example, used to screen complaints through a human rights commission; under the Liberals, it went to a direct-access model that relies on the adversarial process to screen out complaints without a reasonable chance of success. None of the people you have cited have suggested anything quite so drastic.
To the extent that they have suggested changes to procedures under s.13 (and, I assume, its equivalents) it’s because those provisions present special challenges. Not only do those provisions deal with a constitutionally protected right, but, because they allow anyone to bring a complaint (rather than an individual who has been experienced a specific instance of discrimination) they raise issues of standing and jurisdiction. While some of this results from the quirks of Canadian federals – e.g. the CHRT has jurisdiction over internet speech and telephone hate line, but only the provincial bodies can deal with physical publication) there should be some mechanism to prevent multiple proceedings in hate speech cases. It may also be appropriate to provide for some special procedures to deal with vexatious complaints. (As I’ve pointed out elsewhere, it was always open to Macleans to bring a preliminary application to dismiss the BC complaint. For reasons known only to Whyte and Macleans’s counsel, no such application was brought.)
Finally, a point of clarification. Despite my defence of s.13, I’m not unaware of the problems it presents. My problem with the speechers lies not in their opposition to the provisions, but to the intellectual dishonesty of the arguments advanced in opposition.
-S. 13 is not a law against giving offence; it is law against promulgating hatred. – It is not the most serious threat to freedom of speech, not even close; libel chill kills more stories than fear of a complaint to the human rights commission. – It is not a thought-crime or future-crime provision and does not attempt to govern an emotion; it limits expression that attacks specific groups in a very specific way. – Those who support s. 13 are not censors, any more than libel litigants are censors. Our right to free speech has never been without limitation; those who claim that s.13 flies in the face of 800 years of Anglo-Saxon free speech conveniently forget the many limits our society has placed on speech, including criminal provisions against blasphemy, sedition and alarming Her Majesty.
It is possible to have an adult debate about the probity of the inclusion of hate-speech provisions in human rights law. That is not going to happen as long as speechers rally behind a buffoon who distorts the facts, denigrates those who take a different view with childish names (i.e. “Burnie” Farber), and lies about the costs of the process. And it certainly didn’t happen in London.
Good luck with those toilets. And thanks for spoiling the ending of your book. That’s the problem with you academics: you write for each other and can force your books on your students, so, unlike a commercial hack, there’s no real incentive to be innovative. Think of how much better the book would sell if you revealed that, after parting company with George III, the fledgling nation was overcome with remorse after his death in 1820 and decided to kiss and make up with the motherland.
Just a suggestion.
April 17th, 2009 at 7:58 am
It is possible to have an adult debate about the probity of the inclusion of hate-speech provisions in human rights law. That is not going to happen as long as speechers rally behind a buffoon who distorts the facts, denigrates those who take a different view with childish names
Yeah, this from the same guy who types “Five Feet of Pig Ignorance”.
Let me guess, is it:
a) she drives you so crazy you can’t help it
or
b) when you do it, its different
April 17th, 2009 at 10:37 am
Trollwaste is not a lawyer. He has no legal education and is not qualified to practise law. He is lying when he says otherwise.
April 17th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
“S. 13 is not a law against giving offence; it is law against promulgating hatred”
Alasdair MacIntyre call your office. Promulgating hatred. Beautiful. Emotivist jurisprudence.
April 17th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
“I believe you spent time at the Fraser Institute, which usually destroys any ability for independent thought.”
If you’re a lawyer, its painfully apparent that your training in moral philosophy as it undergirds our legal system in Canada remains at a fairly juvenile level.
April 17th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
James,
Shaidle already gave herself a childish name. I merely made it accurate. I wouldn’t make fun of her actual name.
In any event, I’m not the one calling for a debate on hate speech laws; that’s Ezra’s thing. The provisions may be flawed but they haven’t actually caused much mischief to date, despite Ezra’s bogus claim that he dropped 100Gs in legal fes.
ebt,
Nice to see you again. You got a macro for that post? And how are the meds working for you? I mean other than the chronic impotence.
April 17th, 2009 at 7:40 pm
“it is law against promulgating hatred”
oh, put a sock in it. S 13 is a playpen for 3rd rate government hacks and toadies to act exactly as 3rd rate government hacks and toadies always do. They’ve been curb stomped coast to coast on Youtube and roadshows televised on Youtube and editorials in media channels not traditionally too cool with the bombastic Mr. Levant.
And who has risen to their defense? Three crickets chirping.
You want to fix libel chill in Canada? Great! I look forward to your tireless campaign to move our libel laws toward the US model. Good to have you on board.
April 17th, 2009 at 8:56 pm
Gee, Hannibal, care to take another kick at the can? Or have two swings-and-misses left you winded?
April 17th, 2009 at 9:01 pm
TW - thanks for your thoughtful reply (how’s that for a little honey). I will reply in due course, once the chapter is done. And I am sorry for spoiling the ending, though I do argue that the American Revolution was a mixed blessing. As for academic writing – most of us (and I include myself here) don’t write as well as the “hacks.” But if I can survive this ordeal, I may try and write something that is of interest to more than 2.5 colleagues.
April 17th, 2009 at 9:17 pm
Craig,
I look forward to your reply. And you should never give up on the hope of a larger audience. I’m well aware of the tension that exists between academic historians and popularizers like Pierre Berton, but surely the gap can be bridged?
April 17th, 2009 at 9:29 pm
ebt – I have had my differences with TW, but I am pretty sure the guy’s a
lawyer. He knows too much black letter law to have picked it up on the side.
April 17th, 2009 at 9:37 pm
TW - I think it can, but what the academics forget (as they look down on the popularizers) is that it’s actually harder to write a large scale and compelling narrative (a la Berton) than to craft a narrow monograph (“Urban Labour in Toulouse, 1750-1752,” etc). For the latter you need perspiration, for the former (if it’s done well) you need the skills of a novelist.
In Canadian historiography, the great Donald Creighton (late of UT) bridged the gap. But there haven’t been many like him since.
April 17th, 2009 at 11:52 pm
The English, Craig, seem to have fared better: AJP Taylor, Alan Bullock spring to mind. Plus a long and interesting tradition of historical biography. (Which I say having just finished Roy Jenkins’ Churchill and William Hague’s Younger Pitt.) And the Americans, with McCullough and Bloorstein, have been lucky in their popularizers.
April 18th, 2009 at 4:14 am
“Or have two swings-and-misses left you winded?”
This must be the response from Bryan Garner’s The Winning Brief where you pound your fist on the table. So, in the finest tradition of 20th century Anglo-Analytic philosophy and scholastic philosophy, I wait with anticipation for your learned disquisition on how a “law against promulgating hatred” not only works with mere minor tinkering but deserves the support of all Thinking Canadians (tm pending).
As Mr. Spock would say: “I’m all ears.”
April 18th, 2009 at 4:16 am
“And the Americans, with McCullough and Bloorstein, have been lucky in their popularizers.”
Don’t forget Paul Johnson and Jacques Barzun as well as popularizers who take smaller historical epochs and give flesh to bones. Barry Strauss’s Battle of Salamis is a recent example.
April 18th, 2009 at 4:20 am
“wait with anticipation”
Only one ground rule: your penumbra is not allowed to emanate anywhere in your response.
April 18th, 2009 at 5:57 am
Oops.
How could I forget David Hackett Fischer? I’ll be starting his book on Champlain shortly.
April 18th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Jay and H.L –
I agree with all of those (the fact that Hague – I think – was the leader of the opposition when he wrote the Pitt bio is astonishing. Can you imagine any of our current crop of pols, Iggy apart, completing such a task?).
I’d also put the late J.M.S Careless in that category. Chris Moore’s recent obit led me to call up Careless’s two volume bio of George Brown (my university had it in storage!). I read a chapter or two last night. It’s impressive – really brings to life mid-Victorian Canada and a kind of liberalism that is no longer with us, alas. If you guys can find it in a used bookstore, I’d do so.
(N.B. to give the poor academics some credit – it would be hard to write the kinds of compelling general histories we all love without the narrow monographs to draw from.)