Preview
  • Canada

  • A Very Short Introduction
  • By: Donald Wright
  • Narrated by: Matthew Josdal
  • Length: 4 hrs and 41 mins
  • 3.9 out of 5 stars (14 ratings)

Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Canada

By: Donald Wright
Narrated by: Matthew Josdal
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $11.17

Buy for $11.17

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

Canada is not one nation, but three: English Canada, Quebec, and First Nations. Yet as a country Canada is very successful, in part because it maintains national diversity through bilingualism, multiculturalism, and federalism. Alongside this contemporary openness Canada also has its own history to contend with; with a legacy of broken treaties and residential schools for its Indigenous peoples, making reconciliation between Canada and First Nations an ongoing journey, not a destination.

Drawing on history, politics, and literature, this very short introduction starts at the end of the last ice age, when the melting of the ice sheets opened the northern half of North America to Indigenous peoples, and covers up to today's anthropogenic climate change, and Canada's climate politics. Donald Wright emphasizes Canada's complexity and diversity as well as its different identities and its commitment to rights, and explores its historical relationship to Great Britain, and its ongoing relationship with the United States. Finally, he examines Canada's northern realities and its northern identities.

©2020 Donald Wright (P)2020 Tantor
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

What listeners say about Canada

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    6
  • 4 Stars
    4
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    1
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    8
  • 4 Stars
    6
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    6
  • 4 Stars
    5
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    2

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Ideologically driven screed

A tortured telling of a nation’s history with emphasis in the most vapid points while papering over key developments, periods, and people.
An author who is touting for brownie points with each paragraph.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Revisionist history, Left wing, Narrow, Banal

if you like your history unabashedly politicized on the political Left and don't like your closed mind challenged, this book is for you.

It leaves out a serious engagement with all sides of Canadian identity, and it does not engage with the full fruitful tensions that makes for the best history writing. The "neo-liberals" are the enemy, nationalism becomes "nationalisms," there is complete silence on pro-life perspectives of the abortion debate. I could go on. So much is left out. Banal.

This will quickly become a dated book on account of the author's mind being entirely enslaved to the merely ephemeral opinions of the narrow and uneducated prejudices of his own time. It is not good history; not a great book. don't waste your time.

If you can find nothing better, then hold your nose and use this book to glean some chronological facts of Canadian history. It could provide a sophisticated reader a glimpse into the cramped narrowness of the shadows of a closed-mind. But you get this from any newspaper or merely popular blog. It is Left-wing political revisionist "history," quickly dated pulp.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful