The River Battles started with an email

KEN MCGOOGAN / SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL In July, 2014, Canadian historian Mark Zuehlke received an e-mail from Italy. A history institute based in Ravenna was inviting him to give the keynote address at a conference celebrating the 70th anniversary of “the liberation of many towns in our province, Ravenna. … All the towns were…

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A merciless takedown of Mackenzie King

I was taken with Roy MacLaren’s new book about Mackenzie King and said as much in this review that turned up on May 13 in the Globe and Mail. (Special to the Globe) After talking privately with Adolf Hitler in Berlin, Wailliam Lyon Mackenzie King concluded that the German Fuhrer was a fellow mystic who…

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Our son the lawyer makes front page news

So our son the litigation lawyer made the lead story in yesterday’s Globe and Mail. OK, he turns up near the end of the convoluted yarn. But I had no idea that back in 2005, when he was a law student, Carlin was involved in such cloak-and-dagger skulduggery. He has been practicing now for more…

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Cash in your chips, take a sharp left, and hit the beach

Gotta love an article that turns up in today’s Globe and Mail. It’s all about turning failure into success, and in it we find Our Hero talking about 50 Canadians Who Changed the World. “In researching my new book, I came across all kinds of creative ways to respond to failure. The revelations included: 1.…

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Straphanger: Our hero shares thoughts on Rob Ford and transit

REVIEWED BY KEN McGOOGAN From Saturday’s Globe and Mail / Published Friday, Apr. 20, 2012 4:00PM EDT A few years back, while travelling around Amsterdam, I was struck by the speed and efficiency of the light-rail transit system. Next streetcar: 1 minute 30 seconds. And there it was. In Singapore, the city that air conditioning…

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Wade Davis tackles Mount Everest

Our Hero turns up today in the Globe and Mail, lauding the latest book from Wade Davis: . . . Into the Silence is a complex, subversive work, a postcolonial refashioning of an imperialist adventure. Davis, a Canadian anthropologist and explorer, is rightly celebrated for introducing indigenous perspectives into the mainstream. Here, he continues that…

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Northern Exposure

Our hero turns up Saturday (Feb. 19) in the Globe and Mail reviewing The Magnetic North by Sara Wheeler. . . . “Toward the end of this book, Sara Wheeler describes a recent visit to the medieval Solovki monastery in Siberia, located on an island in the White Sea near the Arctic Circle. Solovki “had…

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Say goodbye to John Steinbeck

Say goodbye to John Steinbeck“An unfortunately timeless classic . . . When a politician tried to ban a book in Alberta, Ken McGoogan wrote a protest song. It’s a tune that still needs singing today” That was the headline at the Globe and Mail Books website, where editor Peter Scowen posted and introduced Say Goodbye…

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