Andrew Parnaby

A Hard Man to Beat: The Story of Bill White, Labour Leader, Historian, Shipyard Worker, Raconteur ed. by Howard White (review)

leftism’’ (96). Beaulieu also evokes to great effect the dilemma facing a party of democratic centralism dealing with a membership that was more than 80 per cent Finnish and Ukrainian. He sets in stark relief the trials and tribulations of attempting to ‘‘Bolshevize’’ the language associations. If the Communist Party moved too forcefully, it risked losing the majority of its membership; if it accepted the status quo, the much-needed shift of leaders and organizers from cultural pursuits to workplace organizing and political action would not take place. Labour at the Lakehead is a good read, and readers will come away from it amazed at the richness and vibrancy of the left in northwestern Ontario. Yes, it is a tale of backsliding, infighting, and epithets – my favourite is ‘‘pig headed mutts’’ – not to mention betrayal, corruption, and selling out. Yet we can only marvel at the ability of a left, in such a relatively small population, to turn out 5,000 to 6,000 workers in March 1930 to protest unemployment and imperialist war, 1,400 marchers for International Women’s Day in March 1931, and 5,000 workers in Port Arthur and Fort William demonstrating that same April. And this is just a small sample. Perhaps Beaulieu has not gotten all he could have out of this seeming contradiction, but he has left future scholars with an excellent base to work from and no excuses. He adds impetus to the need for a history of the Social Democratic Party and for works similar to Labour at the Lakehead about Sault Ste Marie and northeastern Ontario. Thanks to Labour at the Lakehead, we can now envision a day in which the history of the northern Ontario left takes its rightful place in our understanding of the Canadian past. peter campbell Queen’s University

Militant Minority: British Columbia Workers and the Rise of a New Left, 1948–1972 (review)

onstrates the wonder of bringing together a wide array of talent and knowledge in a way that no other book format can accomplish. It is only a matter of time, however, before publishers place future collections online alongside digitized journals. If articles destined for essay collections are available individually online, why bother with a collection? Editors will have to make a case for placing an array of articles in a single book, and the burden will fall upon them to create a unified product. It is likely that such expansive volumes as New World Coming will soon become rare, and collections will be increasingly specialized if the Internet is the primary access point for essay collections. dominique clément, University of Alberta