Compass Points : Navigating the Twentieth Century

Table of Contents

• Contents 5
• Leisurely Review of a Fascinating Century 10
• THE FIRST DECADE 15
• Opening a Window on Our Century 16
• The Janus Decade 18
• Saskatoon: The Instant City 26
• New, Fast and Big 32
• Kipling and Yeats: The Apologist and the Visionary 37
• Rethinking the Universe 39
• The Crisis of Modernism 46
• Bloody Dress Rehearsal for 1917 53
• THE SECOND DECADE 55
• A Decade of Suffering and Violence 56
• In 1910 Human Character Changed 58
• Alarm Bells for Civilization 65
• The Social Gospel: Christianity for the Here and Now 70
• Filling the Gap on the Homefront 76
• A Strike with an Elusive Meaning 79
• Ontario's Bitter Language Fight 82
• Influenza: Disease of the Wind 85
• T.E. Lawrence: Military Hero, Anguished Searcher 87
• Russia: Power Was in the Streets 90
• Ireland: Destructive Adventure 93
• THE TWENTIES 95
• The Exuberance and Despair of the 1920s 96
• Prologue to Our Own Era 98
• Literary Fistfight in Paris 105
• Rocky Road to Church Union 109
• No Heroes, No Defeats: A New Era in Canadian Politics 113
• Agnes Macphail in Parliament 118
• Fascism's Mystique of Power 121
• Marcus Garvey: Black Moses 125
• Ascendancy of the Chiangs 128
• Breath Came and They Lived: The Discovery of Insulin 131
• The Public Health Offensive 134
• St. Miguel Pro and the Secret Kingdom 137
• THE THIRTIES 139
• Why Do the 1930s Seem So Familiar? 140
• From Stock Market Crash to Phony War 142
• Desperate Canadians Turned to Political Messiahs 150
• On the Prairies, You Had to Learn to Peel a Nickel 155
• Latin America's Response to the Depression 159
• Education and Economic Democracy: The Antigonish Movement 162
• Emmanuel Mounier: Catalyst for a Generation 167
• Norman Bethune: Driven to Be an Actor on the World Stage 169
• Grey Owl's Masquerade for Conservation 172
• The Soviet Union's Literary Underground 174
• Guernica: Icon of the Century 177
• THE FORTIES 179
• The Second World War's Long Shadow 180
• Are We Losing Sight of the Trees? 182
• The Lasting Trauma of the Holocaust 185
• The Atomic Bomb: Face to Face with Infinite Destruction 189
• Connections to the War Still Vibrate 193
• Country Girl at Intelligence HQ 198
• In the Movies, Even Lassie Went to War 201
• In Canada, a Legacy of Welfare and Political Division 205
• An Ambiguous International Role for Canada 209
• Postwar Social Life Stressed Conformity 213
• Alfred Pellan and the Quebec Painters' Quiet Revolution 217
• THE FIFTIES 221
• A Sense of Time Standing Still 222
• The Cold War Masked a Geopolitical Agenda 224
• Power, Confusion and Corporate Interests: McCarthy and Hoover 229
• The Fifties Look: Selling a Self-Image 234
• My Adventures in Darkest Suburbia 237
• Maire-Alain Couturier: The Priest Who Championed Modern Art 240
• A Peasant Pope Breathed New Life into the Church 244
• The Federal Institution that United Quebecers 247
• TV Hard-Wired Canada into Two Solitudes 250
• We Created an Elvis to Meet Our Need 253
• Beckett's Poetic Rendering of Faith and Doubt 257
• Tony Walsh: A Gentle Man Who Challenged Others 260
• THE SIXTIES 263
• The Multi-Ring Sixties Brought Lasting Change 264
• A Generation that Said No to Plastics 266
• Vatican II: Outpouring of the Spirit and Human Shift 271
• Showing the Maple Leaf in Vietnam 277
• From Hope to a Hole in the Park: The Columbia Revolt 281
• Expo 67: Theme Park for a Happy Future 286
• Fit, Young and Casual Were the Trinity 288
• Hockey Had Not Yet Lost Its Soul 290
• Three Sixties Stories 293
• The Jungle Collided with Rochdale College 293
• My Discovery of Bob Dylan 294
• Changing The World with My Guitar 295
• Taking the Longer View 297
• Georges and Pauline Vanier: The Vice-Regal Couple Who Inspired Canadians 299
• THE SEVENTIES 301
• Watching the 1970s Weave and Unravel 302
• From Boom to Economic Crisis 304
• Christians Made Justice a Vital Concern 309
• New Horizons for Canada 315
• Canadians Listened to "Ni-wha Judge" 319
• Nobel Moved Away from the Mainstream 323
• Watergate: We Still Don't Know Why 326
• Woody's World: Beyond Sex and Death 329
• Finding Feminism, Rediscovering Faith 331
• I Came Too Late for Sixties Magic 335
• Oscar Romero: El Salvador's Archbishop to the Poor 337
• THE EIGHTIES 339
• The Decade in Our Blind Spot 340
• The Rise of Neoconservatism 342
• The Church in Canada: A Golden Autumn and a Dark Night 348
• Quebecers Were Asked a Question, and Gave their Answer 352
• Revolution on the Desktop 357
• The Eighties' Environmental Legacy: Death (of Nature) by Natural Causes? 363
• Jean Vanier: Community Builder 368
• THE NINETIES 371
• The Age of America 372
• After the (Cold) War Is Over... 374
• A Gambler's Society: The End of Job Security 381
• Hannibal's Mirrors: Cyberintelligence and the Zapatista Revolution 386
• Canada in the Information Age 391
• Spirituality in the Nineties: Rediscovering Sacred Spaces 394
• Is Aboriginal Self-Government a Mirage? 400
• Rwanda: Alone with Its Deep Wounds 406
• South Africa's Election: Inspiring yet Sobering 411
• Mother Teresa: Champion of the Poor 416