Akenson argues that, despite the popular conception of the Irish as a city people, those who settled in Ontario were primarily rural and small-town dwellers. Though it is often claimed that the experience of the Irish in their homeland precluded their successful settlement on the frontier in North America, Akenson's research proves that the Irish migrants to Ontario not only chose to live chiefly in the hinterlands, but that they did so with marked success. Akenson also suggests that by using Ontario as an "historical laboratory" it is possible to make valid assessments of the real...
Akenson argues that, despite the popular conception of the Irish as a city people, those who settled in Ontario were primarily rural and small-town dw...
"Donald Akenson writes authoritatively and with verve about this controversial mixture of religion, politics, and culture ... this is a good book that rewards repeated readings." Books in Canada
"Donald Akenson writes authoritatively and with verve about this controversial mixture of religion, politics, and culture ... this is a good book that...
Using supporting evidence that runs from the Solomon Islands and classical China to ancient Ireland, Akenson argues that there are four basic genealogical forms. Highly significant on its own, this insight also provides the information needed to assess the Latter-day Saints' efforts to provide a single narrative of how humanity keeps track of itself. Appendices cover topics of vital interest to historians, genealogists, and ethnographers, such as the use and limits of genetic data in genealogy, the reality of false-paternity as a widespread phenomenon in genealogical lines, and the vexing...
Using supporting evidence that runs from the Solomon Islands and classical China to ancient Ireland, Akenson argues that there are four basic genealog...
The assumption that Irish Protestants and Irish Catholics are fundamentally different is central to modern Irish history. There are hundreds of books and thousands of articles that either presuppose the existence of Irish Catholic-Protestant differences or amplify the theme by illustration and anecdote. Small Differences examines what scholars have so far taken for granted.
The assumption that Irish Protestants and Irish Catholics are fundamentally different is central to modern Irish history. There are hundreds of books...
In a parish register in Ireland, Akenson discovered a record naming an Eliza McCormack White as John's sister. Employing imaginative reconstruction, he proposes that Eliza McCormack, a transvestite prostitute who was in central Canada at the time John White arrived on the Canadian scene, was actually John's sister. Further, he suggests that John White can be best understood by recognizing that he was in fact Eliza!
In a parish register in Ireland, Akenson discovered a record naming an Eliza McCormack White as John's sister. Employing imaginative reconstruction, ...
What Noam Chomsky did for political commentary, and Stephen Hawking did for cosmology, Donald Harman Akenson does for the Bible and its interpreters, and the resulting conclusions are just as astounding. Surpassing Wonder illuminates how the greatest cultural artifacts of our civilization are related to one another and constitute the very core of our consciousness. With biting irreverence for denominational prejudices and the pretensions of academics, Akenson renews our sense of awe before these religious works. He challenges received doctrines, arguing that the ancient Jews were indeed idol...
What Noam Chomsky did for political commentary, and Stephen Hawking did for cosmology, Donald Harman Akenson does for the Bible and its interpreters, ...
To see the Voortrekker monument in Pretoria is to recognize at once that it was built to humble the observer. With walls as thick as parts of the Maginot Line, and ambushments that would do credit to a medieval fortress, this South African national museum would serve equally as well as a defensive outpost. What mentality would create such an imposing structure? We can find the same outlook half a world away in the fortified homesteads that Ulster-Scots built to protect themselves against indigenous Catholics, and in the military settlements of West Bank Israeli farmers. Akenson first...
To see the Voortrekker monument in Pretoria is to recognize at once that it was built to humble the observer. With walls as thick as parts of the Mag...
The career of Conor Cruise O'Brien reads like the work of several people, not just one. Having served as a diplomat under Sean MacBride, he came to world prominence as special representative to Dag Hammarskjold, Secretary General of the United Nations, in the then-Congo. Squeezed ruthlessly by big-power politics, he resigned and wrote To Katanga and Back (1962), a classic in modern African history and still the only book to get behind the polished marble façade to reveal how the United Nations works. O'Brien then became Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ghana, and battled for academic...
The career of Conor Cruise O'Brien reads like the work of several people, not just one. Having served as a diplomat under Sean MacBride, he came to wo...
