National Network for Equitable Library Service

Intellectual juggernaut and staunch atheist Christopher Hitchens goes head-to-head with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, one of the Western world’s most openly devout political leaders, on the highly charged topic of religion. Few world leaders have had a greater hand in shaping current events than Blair; few writers have been more outspoken and polarizing than Hitchens.

With an updated preface by the author. Since the proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, rights have become the dominant language of the public good around the globe. Indeed, rights have become the trump card in every argument. Long-standing fights for aboriginal rights, the issue of preserving the linguistic heritage of minorities, and same-sex marriage have steered our society into a full-blown rights revolution. This revolution is not only deeply controversial in North America, but is being watched around the world.

In his 1964 CBC Massey Lectures C. B. Macpherson examines the rival ideas of democracy - the communist, Third World, and Western-liberal variants - and their impact on one another. He suggests that the West need not fear any challenge to liberal democracy if it is prepared to re-examine and alter its own values.

The Munk Debates is Canada's premier international debate series, a highly anticipated cultural event and feast of ideas. Launched in 2008 by philanthropists Peter and Melanie Munk, these debates bring together some of the world's greatest thinkers to discuss the most pressing political, social, and cultural issues that are shaping the course of world events.

This memoir covers the eight months Bill Rowe served with Premier Williams during what became widely known as the Atlantic Accord Crisis and a bitter long-lasting feud between Williams and the top brass on Parliament Hill.

Grace Margaret Patten Sparkes (1908–2003) was born in Grand Bank, the youngest of ten children born to Elizabeth Hickman and John B. Patten. A lover of music, curling, and politics, this fierce anti-Confederate made a name for herself in the political arena under the auspices of the Progressive Conservative Party of Newfoundland and Labrador.

“Part memoir, part history, The Worst and Best of the Premiers and Some We Never Had is Bill Rowe’s most ambitious work of non-fiction to date. The book observes with a critical and humorous eye the landscape of Newfoundland and Labrador politics since Confederation in 1949. Forty-two leaders are presented here, of all political stripes. Bill Rowe, with his inimitable style, examines the professional lives of each leader—from Chesley A. Crosbie in the 1940s to Dwight Ball, present-day premier of the province—and grades them based on accomplishment during their time in public life.

Before he walked onto the political stage, Norman Doyle grew up in Avondale, Conception Bay, in a family of nine children. He followed in his father’s footsteps and made his way to New York City, where he found employment as an ironworker on the site of the World Trade Center. Later, he returned home, where his political aspirations took root. Inspired by the fiery speeches of Brian Peckford, and with the encouragement of the local ironworkers, Norman threw his hat in the ring and was elected to the House of Assembly in 1979.

The Premiers Joey and Frank is three stories in one. First is Premier Joseph Roberts Smallwood’s, whose ego and force of personality dominated every room he walked into, and strained to the breaking point every personal relationship he had. The latter half of the book covers Premier Frank Moores and his mixed personal motives, combined with a singularity of political purpose: Get Smallwood. Entwined in both these stories is that of Bill Rowe’s own roller-coaster political life, where family and partisan politics were often inseparable.

Peter Cashin was at the centre—the stormy centre—of Newfoundland’s political and public life for more than thirty years. Known to many as “the fighting Major,” in a tribute to his wartime service with the Royal Newfoundland Regiment, he played a decisive role at every major stage in the political drama that transformed Newfoundland from a British Dominion to a Canadian Province. Peter Cashin wrote a memoir soon after he retired from public life in 1953.