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Some People Want to Shoot Me: A Memoir Of Living In Two Cultures
By Madelaine Dickie, Wayne Bergmann. 2024
'I've spent the majority of my life fighting for the rights of Traditional Owners. This has put me in the…
firing line. But I chose this job, I chose this political path. My family did not.' - Wayne BergmannIt's Broome, 2010. Nyikina man Wayne Bergmann has just received a death threat. His wife has watched a friend cross the road to avoid speaking with her. His children are subject to intense schoolyard bullying. Bergmann, a boilermaker by trade, and lawyer, is chief executive of the Kimberley Land Council during the controversial James Price Point gas hub negotiations. It's an event that will tear the Broome community apart. Wayne's story starts on Nyikina country and encompasses backbreaking station work, buried treasure, a Swedish bone thief and traditional magic love songs. His is an electrifying tale of resilience, determination and optimism, which shows what it takes to be an Aboriginal person walking in two cultures in a country where racism runs deep.The Honourable John Norquay: Indigenous Premier, Canadian Statesman
By Gerald Friesen. 2024
The life and times of the Premier from Red River John Norquay, orphan and prodigy, was a leader among the…
Scots Cree peoples of western Canada. Born in the Red River Settlement, he farmed, hunted, traded, and taught school before becoming a legislator, cabinet minister, and, from 1878 to 1887, premier of Manitoba. Once described as Louis Riel’s alter ego, he skirmished with prime minister John A. Macdonald, clashed with railway baron George Stephen, and endured racist taunts while championing the interests of the Prairie West in battles with investment bankers, Ottawa politicians, and the CPR. His contributions to the development of Canada’s federal system and his dealings with issues of race and racism deserve attention today. Recounted here by Canadian historian Gerald Friesen, Norquay’s life story ignites contemporary conversations around the nature of empire and Canada’s own imperial past. Drawing extensively on recently opened letters and financial papers that offer new insights into his business, family, and political life, Friesen reveals Norquay to be a thoughtful statesman and generous patriarch. This masterful biography of the Premier from Red River sheds welcome light on a neglected historical figure and a tumultuous time for Canada and Manitoba.Brotherhood to Nationhood: George Manuel and the Making of the Modern Indian Movement
By Peter McFarlane, Doreen Manuel. 2020
Charged with fresh material and new perspectives, this updated edition of the groundbreaking biography Brotherhood to Nationhood brings George Manuel and…
his fighting tradition into the present. George Manuel (1920–1989) was the strategist and visionary behind the modern Indigenous movement in Canada. A three-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee, he laid the groundwork for what would become the Assembly of First Nations and was the founding president of the World Council of Indigenous Peoples. Authors Peter McFarlane and Doreen Manuel follow him on a riveting journey from his childhood on a Shuswap reserve through three decades of fierce and dedicated activism. In these pages, an all-new foreword by celebrated Mi'kmaq lawyer and activist Pam Palmater is joined by an afterword from Manuel’s granddaughter, land defender Kanahus Manuel. This edition features new photos and previously untold stories of the pivotal roles that the women of the Manuel family played – and continue to play – in the battle for Indigenous rights.Bennelong and Phillip: A History Unravelled
By Kate Fullagar. 2023
The first joint biography of Bennelong and Governor Arthur Phillip, two pivotal figures in Australian history – the colonised and…
coloniser – and a bold and innovative new portrait of both.Australian Book Review Books of the Year 2023Sydney Morning Herald Best Reads of the Year for 2023 Bennelong and Phillip were leaders of their two sides in the first encounters between Britain and Indigenous Australians, Phillip the colony&’s first governor, and Bennelong the Yiyura leader. The pair have come to represent the conflict that flared and has never settled. Fullagar&’s account is also the first full biography of Bennelong of any kind and it challenges many misconceptions, among them that he became alienated from his people and that Phillip was a paragon of Enlightenment benevolence. It tells the story of the men&’s marriages, including Bennelong&’s best-known wife, Barangaroo, and Phillip&’s unusual domestic arrangements, and places the period in the context of the Aboriginal world and the demands of empire. To present this history afresh, Bennelong & Phillip relates events in reverse, moving beyond the limitations of typical Western ways of writing about the past, which have long privileged the coloniser over the colonised. Bennelong&’s world was hardly linear at all, and in Fullagar&’s approach his and Phillip&’s histories now share an equally unfamiliar framing.Terry & Me: The Inside Story of Terry Fox's Marathon of Hope
By Bill Vigars. 2023
There has never been a Canadian quite like Terry Fox and there’s never been a story quite like The Marathon…
of Hope.A twenty-two-year-old cancer survivor and amputee, Terry set out from St. John’s, Newfoundland in April 1980, aiming to run across Canada to raise money for cancer research. His first months on the road in Atlantic Canada and Quebec were not only physically taxing—he ran the equivalent of a marathon a day—but frustrating as Canadians were slow to recognize and support his endeavor.That all changed when he met a young man named Bill Vigars, who on behalf of the Canadian Cancer Society led a campaign to ensure that every person in Canada knew the story of this outstanding young man. Vigars was by Fox’s side through all the highs and lows until the tragic end of his journey in Thunder Bay. A recurrence of his cancer cut short Terry’s dream and, soon, his life. Now, for the first time, Vigars tells the inside story of the Marathon of Hope—the logistical nightmares, boardroom battles, and moments of pure magic—while giving us a fresh, insightful portrait of one of the greatest Canadians who ever lived.Sitting Bull: The Life and Times of an American Patriot
By Robert M. Utley. 2020
The definitive, award-winning biography of the legendary chief and his dramatic role in the history of westward expansionReviled by the…
United States government as a troublemaker and a coward, revered by his people as a great warrior chief, Sitting Bull has long been one of the most fascinating and misunderstood figures in American history. Distinguished historian Robert M. Utley has forged a compelling portrait of Sitting Bull, presenting the Lakota perspective for the first time and rendering the most unbiased, historically accurate, and vivid portrait of the man to date.The Sitting Bull who emerges in this fast-paced narrative is a complex, towering figure: a great warrior whose skill and bravery in battle were unparalleled; the spiritual leader of his people; a dignified but ultimately tragically stubborn defender of the traditional ways against the steadfast and unwelcome encroachment of the white man.Maria Tallchief: America's Prima Ballerina
By Maria Tallchief, Larry Kaplan. 1997
Read the story of the legendary ballerina who now adorns a $1 coin and a US quarter!A fascinating self-portrait of…
the fairy-tale life of a woman who understood that a committed talent could transform the world around her."Maria Tallchief and American ballet came of age in the same moment.... Her story will always be the story of ballet conquering America. It was and is an American romance."-Arlene Croce, The New YorkerI Love Yous Are for White People: A Memoir
By Lac Su. 2009
As a young child, Lac Su made a harrowing escape from the Communists in Vietnam. With a price on his…
father's head, Lac, with his family, was forced to immigrate in 1979 to seedy West Los Angeles where squalid living conditions and a cultural fabric that refused to thread them in effectively squashed their American Dream. Lac's search for love and acceptance amid poverty—not to mention the psychological turmoil created by a harsh and unrelenting father—turned his young life into a comedy of errors and led him to a dangerous gang experience that threatened to tear his life apart.Heart-wrenching, irreverent, and ultimately uplifting, I Love Yous Are for White People is memoir at its most affecting, depicting the struggles that countless individuals have faced in their quest to belong and that even more have endured in pursuit of a father's fleeting affection.Diamond Doris: The True Story of the World's Most Notorious Jewel Thief
By Doris Payne, Zelda Lockhart. 2019
Soon to be a Major Motion PictureIn the ebullient spirit of Ocean’s 8, The Heist, and Thelma & Louise, a…
sensational and entertaining memoir of the world’s most notorious jewel thief—a woman who defied society’s prejudices and norms to carve her own path, stealing from elite jewelers to live her dreams.Growing up during the Depression in the segregated coal town of Slab Fork, West Virginia, Doris Payne was told her dreams were unattainable for poor black girls like her. Surrounded by people who sought to limit her potential, Doris vowed to turn the tables after the owner of a jewelry store threw her out when a white customer arrived. Neither racism nor poverty would hold her back; she would get what she wanted and help her mother escape an abusive relationship.Using her southern charm, quick wit, and fascination with magic as her tools, Payne began shoplifting small pieces of jewelry from local stores. Over the course of six decades, her talents grew with each heist. Becoming an expert world-class jewel thief, she daringly pulled off numerous diamond robberies and her boyfriend fenced the stolen gems to Hollywood celebrities.Doris’s criminal exploits went unsolved well into the 1970s—partly because the stores did not want to admit that they were duped by a black woman. Eventually realizing Doris was using him, her boyfriend turned her in. She was arrested after stealing a diamond ring in Monte Carlo that was valued at more than half a million dollars. But even prison couldn’t contain this larger-than-life personality who cleverly used nuns as well as various ruses to help her break out. With her arrest in 2013 in San Diego, Doris’s fame skyrocketed when media coverage of her astonishing escapades exploded. Today, at eighty-seven, Doris, as bold and vibrant as ever, lives in Atlanta, and is celebrated for her glamorous legacy. She sums up her adventurous career best: “It beat being a teacher or a maid.” A rip-roaringly fun and exciting story as captivating and audacious as Catch Me if You Can and Can You Ever Forgive Me?—Diamond Doris is the portrait of a captivating anti-hero who refused to be defined by the prejudices and mores of a hypocritical society.Let the Trumpet Sound: A Life of Martin Luther King, Jr.
By Stephen B. Oates. 1994
“The most comprehensive, the most thoroughly researched and documented, the most scholarly of the biographies of Martin Luther King, Jr.”…
—Henry Steele Commanger, Philadelphia InquirerWinner of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Book Award * A New York Times Notable Book of the YearBy the acclaimed biographer of Abraham Lincoln, Nat Turner, and John Brown, Stephen B. Oates's prizewinning Let the Trumpet Sound is the definitive one-volume life of Martin Luther King, Jr. This brilliant examination of the great civil rights icon and the movement he led provides a lasting portrait of a man whose dream shaped American history.“Drawing on interviews with those who knew King, previously unutilized material at Presidential libraries, and the holdings of the Martin Luther King Jr. Center in Atlanta, Mr. Oates has written the most comprehensive account of King’s life yet published. . . . He displays a remarkable understanding of King’s individual role in the civil rights movement. . . . Oates’s biography helps us appreciate how sorely King is missed.” —Eric Foner, New York Times Book ReviewThunder Song: Essays
By Sasha LaPointe. 2024
The author of the award-winning memoir Red Paint returns with a razor-sharp, clear-eyed collection of essays on what it means…
to be a proudly queer indigenous woman in the United States todayDrawing on a rich family archive as well as the anthropological work of her late great-grandmother, Sasha taqʷšəblu LaPointe explores themes ranging from indigenous identity and stereotypes to cultural displacement and environmental degradation to understand what our experiences teach us about the power of community, commitment, and conscientious honesty.Unapologetically punk, the essays in Thunder Song segue from the miraculous to the mundane, from the spiritual to the physical, as they examine the role of art—in particular music—and community in helping a new generation of indigenous people claim the strength of their heritage while defining their own path in the contemporary world.The Duel: Diefenbaker, Pearson and the Making of Modern Canada
By John Ibbitson. 2023
INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLEROne of Canada’s foremost authors and journalists, offers a gripping account of the contest between John Diefenbaker and…
Lester Pearson, two prime ministers who fought each other relentlessly, but who between them created today’s Canada. John Diefenbaker has been unfairly treated by history. Although he wrestled with personal demons, his governments launched major reforms in public health care, law reform and immigration. On his watch, First Nations on reserve obtained the right to vote and the federal government began to open up the North. He established Canada as a leader in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, and took the first steps in making Canada a leader in the fight against nuclear proliferation. And Diefenbaker’s Bill of Rights laid the groundwork for the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. He set in motion many of the achievements credited to his successor, Lester B. Pearson.Pearson, in turn, gave coherence to Diefenbaker’s piecemeal reforms. He also pushed Parliament to adopt a new, and now much-loved, Canadian flag against Diefenbaker’s fierce opposition. Pearson understood that if Canada were to be taken seriously as a nation, it must develop a stronger sense of self. Pearson was superbly prepared for the role of prime minister: decades of experience at External Affairs, respected by leaders from Washington to Delhi to Beijing, the only Canadian to win the Nobel Prize for Peace. Diefenbaker was the better politician, though. If Pearson walked with ease in the halls of power, Diefenbaker connected with the farmers and small-town merchants and others left outside the inner circles. Diefenbaker was one of the great orators of Canadian political life; Pearson spoke with a slight lisp. Diefenbaker was the first to get his name in the papers, as a crusading attorney: Diefenbaker for the Defence, champion of the little man. But he struggled as a politician, losing five elections before making it into the House of Commons, and becoming as estranged from the party elites as he was from the Liberals, until his ascension to the Progressive Conservative leadership in 1956 through a freakish political accident. As a young university professor, Pearson caught the attention of the powerful men who were shaping Canada’s first true department of foreign affairs, rising to prominence as the helpful fixer, the man both sides trusted, the embodiment of a new country that had earned its place through war in the counsels of the great powers: ambassador, undersecretary, minister, peacemaker. Everyone knew he was destined to be prime minister. But in 1957, destiny took a detour.Then they faced each other, Diefenbaker v Pearson, across the House of Commons, leaders of their parties, each determined to wrest and hold power, in a decade-long contest that would shake and shape the country. Here is a tale of two men, children of Victoria, who led Canada into the atomic age: each the product of his past, each more like the other than either would ever admit, fighting each other relentlessly while together forging the Canada we live in today. To understand our times, we must first understand theirs.John Turner: An Intimate Biography of Canada's 17th Prime Minister
By Steve Paikin. 2022
In this masterful and engaging biography, acclaimed journalist Steve Paikin brings to life John Turner (1929-2020), one of the most…
glamorous and successful politicians in Canadian history. Born in England, raised in BC, Turner was a champion sprinter and a Rhodes scholar who captured the national imagination as escort for Princess Margaret on her 1959 Canadian tour. Elected to Parliament in 1962, he served in Prime Minister Lester Pearson's cabinet and as Pierre Trudeau's attorney general, minister of justice, and finance minister. In 1984, he won a hotly-contested Liberal leadership contest and served a brief four months as Canada's seventeenth prime minister before falling to Brian Mulroney in a Progressive Conservative landslide. In this surprisingly candid and personal book, Paikin draws on unprecedented access to Turner's personal and public papers to show how he struggled to meet the towering expectations that came with his abundant gifts, and keep his faith in Canadian democracy despite the challenges of his own careerWhiskey Tender: A Memoir
By Deborah Taffa. 2024
A Zibby Mag "Most Anticipated Book" * A San Francisco Chronicle "New Book to Cozy Up With" * A Publishers…
Weekly "Memoirs & Biographies: Top 10" * The Millions "Most Anticipated" * An Electric Lit “Books By Women of Color to Read"“We have more Native stories now, but we have not heard one like this. Whiskey Tender is unexpected and propulsive, indeed tender, but also bold, and beautifully told, like a drink you didn’t know you were thirsty for. This book, never anything less than mesmerizing, is full of family stories and vital Native history. It pulses and it aches, and it lifts, consistently. It threads together so much truth by the time we are done, what has been woven together equals a kind of completeness from brokenness, and a hope from knowing love and loss and love again by naming it so.” — Tommy Orange, National Bestselling Author of There There Reminiscent of the works of Mary Karr and Terese Marie Mailhot, a memoir of family and survival, coming-of-age on and off the reservation, and of the frictions between mainstream American culture and Native inheritance; assimilation and reverence for tradition.Deborah Jackson Taffa was raised to believe that some sacrifices were necessary to achieve a better life. Her grandparents—citizens of the Quechan Nation and Laguna Pueblo tribe—were sent to Indian boarding schools run by white missionaries, while her parents were encouraged to take part in governmental job training off the reservation. Assimilation meant relocation, but as Taffa matured into adulthood, she began to question the promise handed down by her elders and by American society: that if she gave up her culture, her land, and her traditions, she would not only be accepted, but would be able to achieve the “American Dream.”Whiskey Tender traces how a mixed tribe native girl—born on the California Yuma reservation and raised in Navajo territory in New Mexico—comes to her own interpretation of identity, despite her parent’s desires for her to transcend the class and “Indian” status of her birth through education, and despite the Quechan tribe’s particular traditions and beliefs regarding oral and recorded histories. Taffa’s childhood memories unspool into meditations on tribal identity, the rampant criminalization of Native men, governmental assimilation policies, the Red Power movement, and the negotiation between belonging and resisting systemic oppression. Pan-Indian, as well as specific tribal histories and myths, blend with stories of a 1970s and 1980s childhood spent on and off the reservation.Taffa offers a sharp and thought-provoking historical analysis laced with humor and heart. As she reflects on her past and present—the promise of assimilation and the many betrayals her family has suffered, both personal and historical; trauma passed down through generations—she reminds us of how the cultural narratives of her ancestors have been excluded from the central mythologies and structures of the “melting pot” of America, revealing all that is sacrificed for the promise of acceptance.The gripping, forgotten tale of Ira Hayes—a Native American icon and World War II legend who famously helped raise the flag at Iwo Jima but…
spent the latter half of his life haunted by being a war hero. IRA HAYES tells the story of Ira Hamilton Hayes from the perspective of a Native American combat veteran of the Vietnam generation. Hayes, along with five other Marines, was captured in Joe Rosenthal&’s iconic photograph of raising the stars and stripes on Mount Suribachi during the battle for the Japanese Island of Iwo Jima. The photograph was the inspiration and model for the U.S. Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington. Between the time he helped raise that flag and his death—and beyond—he was the subject of more newspaper columns than any other Native person. He was hailed as a hero and maligned as a chronic alcoholic unable to take care of himself. IRA HAYES explores these fluctuating views of Ira Hayes. It reveals that they were primarily the product of American misconceptions about Native people, the nature of combat, and even alcoholism. Like most surviving veterans of combat, Ira did not think of himself as a heroic figure. There can be no doubt that Ira suffered from PTSD, which is a compound of survivor&’s guilt, the shock of seeing death, especially of one&’s friends, and the isolation brought on by feeling that no one could understand what he had been through. Ira&’s life has been a subject of two motion pictures and a television drama. All these dramas sympathize with him, but ultimately fail to see his binge drinking as his way of temporarily escaping the melancholy, the rage he felt, his sense of betrayal, and the sheer boredom of peacetime. IRA HAYES breaks apart the complexities of Ira&’s short life in honor of all Native veterans who have been to war in the service of the United States. This is equally their story.Rogers v. Rogers: The Battle for Control of Canada's Telecom Empire
By Alexandra Posadzki. 2024
A riveting, deeply reported account that takes us inside the dramatic battle for control of Canada’s largest wireless carrier, and…
paints a broader picture of the cutthroat telecom industry, the labyrinth of regulatory and political systems that govern it, and the high-stakes corporate games played by the Canadian establishment. Alexandra Posadzki’s ground-breaking coverage in the Globe and Mail exposed one of the most spectacular boardroom and family dramas in Canadian corporate history—one that has pitted the company’s extraordinarily powerful chairman and controlling shareholder, Edward Rogers, against not only his own management team but also the wishes of his mother and two of his sisters. Hanging in the balance is no less than the pending $20 billion acquisition of Shaw Communications, a historic deal that promises to transform Rogers into the truly national telecom empire that its late founder, Ted Rogers, always envisioned. Based on deeply sourced, investigative reporting of the iconic $30 billion publicly traded telecom and media giant, Posadzki takes us inside a company that touches the lives of millions of Canadians, challenging what we thought we knew about corporate governance and who really holds the power. Rogers v. Rogers is also a story of family legacy and succession, of an old guard pushing back at the new guard, and of a company struggling to find its footing in the wake of its legendary founder’s death. At the heart of it all is a dispute between warring factions of the family over how they each interpret the desires of the late patriarch and the very identity of the company that bears their name.Geronimo's Story of His Life: As Told to S. M. Barrett
By Geronimo, S. M. Barrett. 1906
A pivotal piece of nineteenth-century Native American history from a tireless warrior seeking justice for his people. Storied leader of…
the Bedonkohe band of the Chiricahua Apache tribe, Geronimo led resistance against Mexican and American troops seeking to drive the Apache from their land during the 1850s through the 1880s. In 1886, he finally surrendered to the US Army and became a prisoner of war. Although he would never return to his homeland, Geronimo became an iconic figure in Native American society and even had the honor of riding with President Theodore Roosevelt in his 1905 inaugural parade. That same year, he agreed to share his story with Stephen M. Barrett, a superintendent of education from Lawton, Oklahoma. In Geronimo&’s own words, this is his fascinating life story. Beginning with an Apache creation myth, he discusses his youth and family, the bloody conflicts between Mexico and the United States, and his two decades of life as a prisoner. Revered by his people and feared by his enemies, Geronimo narrates his memoir with a compassionate and compelling voice that still resonates today.Longtemps considérée comme une rébellion mineure, la tentative de révolution de 1837 a en réalité secoué l'ensemble de l'Amérique du…
Nord, menaçant de renvoyer le pouvoir britannique hors du continent, mais également d'inaugurer une expérience républicaine différente. La révolution a échoué, mais les idées qu'elle a véhiculées - tant progressistes qu'élitistes - résonnent encore aujourd'huiTrudeau le Québécois
By Michel Vastel. 1989
Dans cette nouvelle édition mise à jour, l'auteur s'est livré à une passionnante analyse des relations de Trudeau avec la…
«tribu» québécoise. Fort de nombreux témoignages inédits et de son expérience de correspondant parlementaire, il propose, sur l'homme et sur les aspects de sa carrière, une riche réflexion qui n'a pas fini de susciter des discussions enflammées. Un livre clé pour comprendre celui qui reste un des plus éminents politiciens que le Québec ait produits.Duplessis, non merci!
By Jacques Hébert. 2000
Citoyen du monde engagé dans de nombreux combats pour la liberté, J. Hébert prend sa plume pour en finir avec…
Maurice Duplessis (1890-1959), homme politique canadien qui fonda le parti Union nationale.