"In a definitive overview of Laurence Aberhart's work to date, 238 full-page reproductions of iconic photographs of churches, marae, cemeteries, Masonic Lodges and other subjects are accompanied by essays by New Zealand art writers Gregory O'Brien and Justin Paton. O'Brien pursues the motif of the horizon through Aberhart's work, considering the many journeys that his career encompasses and the shelters and structures seen along the way, while Paton focuses on the human presences that animate Aberhart's body of work"--Book jacket.
In this completely revised and expanded edition of the Encyclopedia of Evangelicalism, Randall Balmer gives readers the most comprehensive resource about evangelicalism available anywhere. With over 3,000 separate entries, the Encyclopedia of Evangelicalism covers historical and contemporary theologians, preachers, laity, cultural figures, musicians, televangelists, movements, organizations, denominations, folkways, theological terms, events, and much more--all penned in Balmer's engaging style. Students, scholars, journalists, and laypersons will all benefit from Balmer's insights.
Compared to the United States, it is assumed that religion has not been a significant factor in Canada’s political development. In God’s Province, Clark Banack challenges this assumption, showing that, in Alberta, religious motivation has played a vital role in shaping its political trajectory. For Henry Wise Wood, president of the United Farmers of Alberta from 1916 until 1931, William "Bible Bill" Aberhart, founder of the Alberta Social Credit Party and premier from 1935 until 1943, Aberhart’s protégé Ernest Manning, Alberta’s longest serving premier (1943–1968), and Manning’s son Preston, founder of the Alberta-based federal Reform Party of Canada, religion was central to their thinking about human agency, the purpose of politics, the role of the state, the nature of the economy, and the proper duties of citizens. Drawing on substantial archival research and in-depth interviews, God’s Province highlights the strong link that exists between the religiously inspired political thought and action of these formative leaders, the US evangelical Protestant tradition from which they drew, and the emergence of an individualistic, populist, and anti-statist sentiment in Alberta that is largely unfamiliar to the rest of Canada. Covering nearly a century of Alberta’s history, Banack offers an illuminating reconsideration of the political thought of these leaders, the goals of the movements they led, and the roots of Alberta’s distinctiveness within Canada. A fusion of religious history, intellectual history, and political thought, God’s Province exposes the ways in which individual politicians have shaped one province’s political culture.
From the optimism associated with provincial status in 1905, through the trials of Depression and war, the boom times of the post-war period, and the economic vagaries of the 1980s and the 1990s, the twentieth century was a time of growth and hardship, development and change, for Alberta and its people. And during the century, twelve men, from a variety of political parties and from very different backgrounds, led the government of this province. The names of some--like William Aberhart, Ernest Manning, and Peter Lougheed--are still household names, while others--like Arthur Sifton, Herbert Greenfield and Richard Reid--have been all but forgotten. Yet each in his unique way, for better or for worse, helped to mould and steer the destiny of the province he governed. These are their stories.
In Social Discredit Janine Stingel exposes a crucial, yet previously neglected, part of Social Credit history - the virulent, anti-Jewish campaign it undertook before, during, and after the Second World War. While most Canadians acknowledged the perils of race hatred in the wake of the Holocaust, Social Credit intensified its anti-Semitic campaign. By examining Social Credit's anti-Semitic propaganda and the reaction of the Canadian Jewish Congress, Stingel details their mutual antagonism and explores why Congress was unable to stop Social Credit's blatant defamation. She argues that Congress's ineffective response was part of a broader problem in which passivity and a belief in "quiet diplomacy" undermined many of its efforts to combat intolerance. Stingel shows that both Social Credit and Congress changed considerably in the post-war period, as Social Credit abandoned its anti-Semitic trappings and Congress gradually adopted an assertive and pugnacious public relations philosophy that made it a champion of human rights in Canada. Social Discredit offers a fresh perspective on both the Social Credit movement and the Canadian Jewish Congress, substantively revising Social Credit historiography and providing a valuable addition to Canadian Jewish studies.
"On the night of August 22, 1935, as Canadians listened to their radios, they heard, with amazement and incredulity, that the first Social Credit government in the world had been elected that day in the province of Alberta. . . . Before the tabulation of votes was completed, telephone calls from New York and London, headlines in newspapers, spot news in broadcasts, had confirmed the slogan of Social Crediters, 'The Eyes of the World are on Alberta.' The morning after the election a number of people lined up at the city hall in Calgary to collect the first installment of the Social Credit dividend of $25 monthly, which, they confidently believed, would be immediately forthcoming from their new government." This quotation from Professor Irving's book indicates how the apparent suddenness of the Social Credit rise to power and the magnitude of the victory aroused world-wide comment. Why had the doctrines of Social Credit, promoted unsuccessfully in the British Commonwealth and the United States for nearly twenty years, achieved political acceptance in Alberta? Why had the people of Alberta elected to public office persons so little experienced in the economic and political world as William Aberhart and his Social Credit colleagues? Professor Iving answers these questions and analyses systematically and comprehensively the rise of the movement as a phenomenon of mass psychology. His study, based mainly on interviews, supplemented with references to private papers, newspapers, and government sources provides a truly fascinating record.
For years scholars have maintained that Social Credit was a protest on the part of small-scale farmers, who fought against their disadvantaged position in advanced capitalism by rejecting central Canada's control of the prairie region. The protest is usually described as conservative and its supporters portrayed as small agrarian capitalists who combined their opposition to regional exploitation with a firm commitment to capitalism. Based on a review of census materials on occupations, election results, and the party's statements and appeals, Bell reveals that this traditional interpretation is misguided on several counts. He provides a greatly revised picture of the movement's popular class base and its goals and motives, and shows that it was far more radical than commonly believed. The theory of social movements Bell draws from this analysis is applicable not only to Social Credit but to social movements in general. Social Classes and Social Credit in Alberta will be of particular interest to sociologists, political scientists, and historians concerned with Canadian social movements and elections and the political history of the Great Depression.
Robert A. Wardhaugh chronicles Clark's contributions to Canada's modern state in Behind the Scenes, which reconstructs the public life and ideas of one of Canada's most important bureaucrats.
Forging Alberta’s Constitutional Framework analyzes the principal events and processes that precipitated the emergence and formation of the law and legal culture of Alberta from the foundation of the Hudson’s Bay in 1670 until the eve of the centenary of the Province in 2005. The formation of Alberta’s constitution and legal institutions was by no means a simple process by which English and Canadian law was imposed upon a receptive and passive population. Challenges to authority, latent lawlessness, interaction between indigenous and settler societies, periods (pre- and post-1905) of jurisdictional confusion, and demands for individual, group, and provincial rights and recognitions are as much part of Alberta’s legal history as the heroic and mythic images of an emergent and orderly Canadian west patrolled from the outset by red coated mounted police and peopled by peaceful and law-abiding subjects of the Crown. Papers focus on the development of criminal law in the Canadian west in the nineteenth century; the Natural Resources Transfer Agreement of 1930; the National Energy Program of the 1980s; Federal-Provincial relations; and the role and responsibilities of the offices of Justices of the Peace and of the Lieutenant-Governor; and the legacies of the Lougheed and Klein governments.
