ET Books

The book draws you into a world filled with life, views of adult to child, and a mixture of being alive. Each snippet of view reminds the reader of hope and purpose. This combination of stories is well worth time and dollars spent.

The illustrations accompanying this heartwarming story about wishes coming true perfectly capture the allure of summer at the seaside. I have read this story to school children aged 6-10 and they have all loved it. A wonderful Canadian author and illlustrator.

This is the most complete reference of openGL. If you are a programmer of 3D aplications with opengl, this books are for you.

As an amateur student in Portuguese, I raised my grade to an A-. I recommend all Portuguse students to read this book.

A great, though slightly outdated, oral boards review. Written by a bunch of docs who give the orals, it covers 80-90% of the questions on the orals. Pretty quick easy read that you can cover in the last week or two before the orals.

Pour les nostalgiques, cet ouvrage vous rapellera surement votre enfance!
Oui-oui, toujours si gentil, plait aux enfants et aux parents pour ses differentes qualites et pour la petite morale de l'histoire.

Picture a banquet hall, at a skating rink in Quebec City, in 1880, the time of gas lamps and horse-drawn carriages. Five hundred people sit along long tables. The occasion: a major celebration of the French in North America. After a meal of succulent meats and mouth-watering pies, the band strikes up. The crowd rises and "electrified by an unstoppable impulse," report those who were there, sings, for the first time ever, O Canada.

Next year marks the 125th anniversary of O Canada. Our Song: The Story of O Canada (Lobster Press, 2004), tells, for the first time, the story of the song's history. The author of the music, Calixa Lavallée, was a colourful character who fought in the U.S. Civil War on the Union side, went on to fame as an opera-writer in Boston, Paris and London, wrote what became Canada's anthem, and died, penniless and forgotten, in Boston in 1891.

The song became a hit in French Canada, but took its time travelling to English Canada. The tune caught on across the country but people from Nova Scotia to British Columbia sang completely different words. It was not until 1980, fully 100 years after the song's birth, that the House of Commons in Ottawa officially passed legislation making it officially Canada's national anthem.

This children's book, chock-full of fun collage-type illustrations and packed with facts about Canadian history, makes a great gift for anyone seeking more insight into Canada's colourful past.

A thorough historical analysis, very scholary textbook. Not as entertaining as A McCullough biography but its not meant to be. Using good sources and sound interpertation this would be a good recomendation for any student, scholar or dabbler.

Table of Contents (concise)

I. Political and Constitutional history 1603-29

Lists major events (P1-46)
e.g.Rochester's ascendancy p16
Fall of Sir Edward Coke,1616 p20
Rise of Buckingham p22
meeting of parliament in 1621 p24 etc. . .

II. Foreign Relations 1603-30
(p47-67)
Peace made with Spain, 1604 p.49
relations with United provinces p.51
causes of rivalry with Dutch p.52
Influence of Gondomar, Spanish ambassador, 1613-22 p.54
The Spanish match, 1615-23 p.55
Beginning of Thirty Years War, 1618 p.55 etc. . .

III. Religious History 1603-40
(p68-79)

IV. Political and Constitutional history 1629-40
(p80-98)

V. Political and Constitutional History 1640-1
(p99-123)

VI. Political and Constitutional History 1642-9
(p124-158)

VII. Political and Constitutional History 1649-58
(p160-189)

VIII. Religious History 1640-60
(p190-214)

IX. Foreign Relations 1630-60
(P215-234)

X. Political and Constitutional History 1658-60
(p237-260)

XI. Social and economic History
(p261-311)

XII. Foreign trade and colonies
(p316-349)

XIII. Education and science
(p350-373)

XIV. The arts
(p374-389)

XV. Literature
(p390-415)

Bibliography
(p417-444)

The above is an abreviated table of contents. The entire series is extremely useful and though sometimes can be a little dry in places is written well enough to keep events moving and be relevant

In the late 17th century, the Commons were divided into a Court party and a Country Party. Shaftsbury drew the Country party together and established the Green Ribbon Club. Willson and Prall would later observe that "The Whigs, following Shaftsbury, stood for limitation of royal power and for increased toleration for Protestants though not for Catholics" (A History of England, 1984).

James II, 1685-88, began his reign in a strong position. The Whigs were crushed, the Tories blindly loyal. Then in 1688, "A group of Whig and Tory leaders, acting together, extended an invitation to William III to invade England with a military force around which the country could rally in revolt against its present king"(Willson and Prall, ibid). James fled. Whigs and Tories met in a conciliatory spirit and the Bill of Rights (1689) established England as a limited monarchy.

In 1714, George I from Hanover became King. He had Whigs as his friends and the new ministers were almost entirely Whigs. In 1715, Whigs became the majority in the House of Commons and they began to brand all Tories as Jacobites and traitors. By 1720, everyone who hoped for office called himself a Whig. There were now Whigs in opposition as well as in the government.

Williams says that "the Revolution itself was quite as much the work of high-flying church tories who feared for their religious security under a Roman Catholic king as of Whigs who saw in it their political salvation". And of the new ministers, Williams says that "Except for Shrewsbury . . . and Nottingham . . ., all the new mininsters were whigs".

In 1714, the "first cleavage of the Whig Party . . . led by Walpole, . . . put up much opposition . . . against the government's . . . repeal of the Tory acts gainst protestant dissenters . . . of 1711 and 1714".

Walpole is interesting as a Whig. Williams says "During his first twenty years in politics he gave ample proof of his staunchness to Whig principles and friends [1701-1721]. In 1710 . . . he preferred to suffer in the Tower for his obstinate Whiggery".

Walpole's experiences gave him political savvy. Williams says "This long experience of political vicissitudes . . . led him to . . . that cynical view . . . which did much to discredit parliament in the public eye and to create that climate of opinion in which radical criticisms were later to flourish". Walpole sought a powerful ministry through quieta non movere - not upsetting people. Those who got in Walpole's way, he branded Jacobites (neocons or Tories today). Dissenters often landed themselves in the Tower, Tory and Whig alike. In addition, Williams says that "Walpole was one of our greatest finance ministers . . . peace minister . . . and . . . house of commons man".

But it is interesting to note that during this period in British history, "The Fleet was manned predominately by the press-gang, which recruited by force from the sea-faring populace". This is a type of slavery that is at odds with Whiggish notions of liberty.

Williams says "During the 1720's Walpole and Townshend were supreme" and "It was in financial and economic policy that Walpole excelled". Williams adds that "He believed that the best protection against Jacobitism was a prosperous and contented people, and he set about making England . . . rich". However, during the 1730's "he began to lose ground", "Whig politicians hand been dismissed by Walpole . . . and were his personal enemies". Williams says "He was opposed by . . . many discontented Whigs".

Williams says "In the Stanhope-Walpole period, though the interest is predominately domestic, the internal development of the country is often subject to external influences, while the foreign policy and the wars . . . cannot be fully understood without constant reference to the internal jealousies and intrigues of the whig oligarchy mainly responsible for the direction of affairs".

"We need for this period to know how far the new system of government, especially as elaborated by Walpole, fitted in with old constitutional traditions, how far with the new doctrines derived from the Revolution, first explicitly set forth by Locke, and adopted by the Whigs as the orthodox creed; how far too facts corresponded with theory, often more wide apart in England than in any other country".

"For both the theory and the system of government druing the reigns of the first two Georges were a direct result of the Revolution settlement, which would never have had the importance it gained in succeeding years had it not been for Locke's interpretation of it . . . the evangelist of Whig doctrine".

John Locke's importance in the Whiggery movement cannot be understated, according to Williams: "The Whigs found in Locke's . . . works . . . an effective antidote to the tory thesis". "In emphasizing this merely protective duty of the state Locke . . . encouraged a Whig oligarchy to regard one of the chief objects of government to be the protection of their own rights of property and to adopt an attitude of neglect or indifference to social evils affecting the lower classes". "The sole object of . . . government . . . was to preserve rights". Williams concludes that "It was an age in which the sturdy middle-class merchants, Whigs to a man . . . were . . . producing the wealth".

Eventually, however, "The term 'Whig' was coming to mean little or nothing". "Everyone was a Whig unless he was distinctly a Tory". Williams observes that "The Lower Classes . . . did not prosper" and "The end of the century was a bad time for all the smaller people".

On toleration, Williams notes "As for the Roman Catholics, . . . the country at large . . . was much better than its laws. The penal clauses . . . were rarely put into force during this century". Also, "Aristocrats like Shaftsbury, Chesterfield, or even Bolingbroke might safely be left to their free-thinking propensities, so long as they abjured extreme tory doctrines in the state and were careful not to contaminate the poor by too popular a presentment of their heresies".

"The established religion was . . . a safeguard for the Whig system of government, and especially . . . a valuable form of police control over the lower classes." And "Ever since the Revolution the selection of bishops had been chiefly based on political grounds". "The religious thought . . . was largely dominated by . . . Locke [who] had defended the establishment [of religion] purely on the grounds of expediency".

Some Whigs displayed some anti-Whiggish actions such as the Inclosure Acts. Wrote Arthur Young, "The poor may say and with with truth, Parliament may be tender of property: all I know is that I had a cow and an act of Parliament has taken it from me".

Debtor's prison saw people incarcerated "some for the smallest sums" where they would be charged room and board and often suffered "gaol fever" and death. Williams mentions "brutality of punishments". And he explains "the view, largely due to Locke and most economists, that poverty was almost a crime and that . . . the poor deserved all they got". Yet, "By law wages would still be fixed by the justices in session, . . . the general attitude of economists and of the government was that the workmen should not be too well paid, as that was bad for trade, and that 'nothing but necessity will enforce labour'".

In 1721, workers' unions were declared illegal, "but the right of combinations among employers was left untouched".

On education, "in book-learning [too] . . . the labouring classes had a stunted growth". Of the few schools available to the lower classes, "The main object was, in fact, to establish social discipline among the poor".

Also, "srikes . . . generally suppressed by the military in the interests of the employers. Every obstacle, indeed, was placed in the way of the working classes anxious to improve their condition; and they had to wait nearly three-quarters of a century before they achieved any sensible improvement."

Williams says the political theory of the Whigs was Lockean property rights theory. If you had property, you had rights. In reality, if you had 10 pound sterling (roughly a thousand dollars today) THEN you could vote. England was a society of the rich, by the rich and for the rich. It had no free market and had outlawed free enterprise. The common man did not get the right to vote until 1867, two years after the African American achieved the right to vote in the U.S.

So what is Lockean theory and how was it suppose to theoretically translate towards the poor? Lock said every man is "the Workmanship of one Omnipotent", God's property, and that "Every one . . . is bound to preserve himself". From what, then, may a poor man claim rights if his self is not his to claim as property? Locke said "every Man has a Property in his own Person" and "the Labour of his Body, and the Work of his Hands". Williams says "By this theory all the stress was laid on the privileges of property-owners until it became doubtful if the really poor had any rights at all theoretically. To Locke, the cost of the poor was a 'growing burden on the Kingdom' . . . and he advocated seizing all the sound idle poor up to the age of fifty to serve on His Majesty's ships, for the maimed and those over fifty to be sent to houses of correction for hard labour and not too much comfort". In other words, no labour - no rights.

If Locke represents Whig political theory, then it is remarkable how successfully England pursued it in the early 18th century while advancing British Empire. Yet Radical Whigs, or libertarians, such as William Wollaston, John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon showed their versions of Whig theory to be different in that they were dominated by ideas of liberty.

Why the embrace of Locke to the detriment of equal consideration to other radical thinkers? I believe it was embraced by the same element and for the same reasons that nearly one hundred years later, English colonists in America who mirrored their Whig predecessors in that they were wealthy, propertied, and fearful of government, embraced a similar whig ideology. In both cases, a landed gentry saw it to be in their best interests to do so.

I conclude this review with a deep regret that the touted great libertarian thinker John Locke and his Whig compatriots were not so libertarian after all; the idea of liberty was advanced only when the wealthy saw is as profitable to do so. The average man was generally screwed - illiterate and subsequently unable to achieve voice, he had to wait for his "betters" to take up his cause.

This set of essays by the master Shakespeare critic A.C. Bradley contains essays on :Poetry for Poetry's Sake, The Sublime, Hegel's Theory of Tragedy, Wordsworth, Shelley's View of Poetry, The Long Poem in the Age of Wordsworth, The Letters of Keats, The Rejection of Falstaff, Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, Shakespeare the Man, Shakespeare's Theatre and Audience.
I especially enjoyed the essay on Keats where Bradley focuses on the meaning of Beauty in Keats' letters. His appreciation of the remarkable character of Keats and how this is reflected both in the Letters and the Poems is instructive. The essay on Shakespeare the Man I found a bit speculative , yet another attempt to say something about the character of the character who mastered and made so many different characters. It is interesting that Bradley believes that Shakespeare is the poet who best exemplified Keats' prescription for what a poet ideally should be, one whose negative capability means he is within and without all the characters he creates. The essay on Wordsworth focuses on his originality especially in finding in the simplicities of daily life, and in simple characters the deepest expressions of human soul.
But there is much more than I have indicated here . This is a classic set of essays by one of the English literary traditions, most important critics.