In the 1930s, when the competitive, free market system lay in ruins and the competing systems of fascism and communism were gaining strength, the Antigonish Movement emerged offering a "middle way." The movement favoured putting in place an integrated and dynamic system based on cooperative economic institutions under the control of the people. The Antigonish Movement originated with the establishment of the Extension Department of St Francis Xavier University in 1928, with Reverend Moses Coady as director. Guided by the social teaching of the Catholic Church, the movement promoted an array...

It is difficult to imagine how orphan asylums and children's homes - often depicted as places where abuse, deprivation, and cruelty were commonplace - once presented a viable solution to child neglect. Renee N. Lafferty examines this response as it played out in Halifax, demonstrating how these homes reacted both creatively and valiantly to their environment, despite chronic underfunding and a narrow vision of the possibilities available to disadvantaged children. The Guardianship of Best Interests traces the creation and administration of children's homes in Halifax from the mid-nineteenth...

In The Covenanters in Canada, Eldon Hay sheds light on a religious community often overlooked in the chronicle of Canadian history. A group of religious and political dissenters who opposed the interference by the Stuart kings in the affairs of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, the Covenanter movement was small, but had deep roots worthy of attention and respect. This study of a resilient tradition of religious dissent reflects the value of variance in a genuinely pluralistic society. The Covenanters objected to a ruler who was both the head of state and head of the church. Tracing the...

In mid-twentieth century Britain, four intellectuals - Julian Huxley, Bertrand Russell, Malcolm Muggeridge, and Barbara Ward - held sway over popular conceptions of morality. While Huxley and Russell championed ideas informed by agnosticism and atheism, Muggeridge and Ward were adherents to Christianity. In Contesting the Moral High Ground, Paul Phillips reveals how this fundamental dichotomy was representative of British society at the time, and how many of the ideologies promoted by these four moralists are still present today. As world-class public figures in an open forum of debate,...

How do we acquire knowledge through a sensory input from our environment? In The Enigma of Perception, D.L.C. Maclachlan revives the traditional causal representative theory of perception which dominated philosophical thinking for hundreds of years by revealing the important element of truth the theory contained. The traditional theory was not a complete explanation of perception, because it presupposed a causal system including both the physical objects and the subjective experiences. The pattern of inference from sensations to external objects, which lies at its heart, is nevertheless...

"As Canadian as the maple leaf" is how one observer summed up the United Church of Canada after its founding in 1925. But was this Canadian-made church flawed in its design, as critics have charged? A Church with the Soul of a Nation explores this question by weaving together the history of the United Church with a provocative analysis of religion and cultural change. The story begins in the aftermath of Confederation, when the prospects of building a Christian nation persuaded a group of Congregationalist, Methodist, and Presbyterian leaders to set aside denominational differences and focus...

"As Canadian as the maple leaf" is how one observer summed up the United Church of Canada after its founding in 1925. But was this Canadian-made church flawed in its design, as critics have charged? A Church with the Soul of a Nation explores this question by weaving together the history of the United Church with a provocative analysis of religion and cultural change. The story begins in the aftermath of Confederation, when the prospects of building a Christian nation persuaded a group of Congregationalist, Methodist, and Presbyterian leaders to set aside denominational differences and focus...

In Nietzsche's Justice, Peter Sedgwick takes the theme of justice to the very heart of the great thinker's philosophy. He argues that Nietzsche's treatment of justice springs from an engagement with the themes charted in his first book, The Birth of Tragedy, which invokes the notion of an absolute justice grasped by way of artistic metaphysics. Nietzsche's encounter with Greek tragedy spurs the development of an oracular conception of justice capable of transcending rigid social convention. Sedgwick argues that although Nietzsche's later writings reject his earlier metaphysics, his mature...

In Nietzsche's Justice, Peter Sedgwick takes the theme of justice to the very heart of the great thinker's philosophy. He argues that Nietzsche's treatment of justice springs from an engagement with the themes charted in his first book, The Birth of Tragedy, which invokes the notion of an absolute justice grasped by way of artistic metaphysics. Nietzsche's encounter with Greek tragedy spurs the development of an oracular conception of justice capable of transcending rigid social convention. Sedgwick argues that although Nietzsche's later writings reject his earlier metaphysics, his mature...

From before Confederation to the present day, religion has been one of the most contentious issues in Canadian public life. In Fighting over God, Janet Buckingham surveys a vast array of religious conflicts, exploring both their political aspects and the court cases that were part of their resolution. While topics such as the Manitoba Schools Crisis and debates about Sunday shopping are familiar territory, Buckingham focuses on lesser-known conflicts such as those over the education of Doukhobor and Mennonite children and the banning of the Jehovah's Witness religion under the Defence of...