I've been reading a fair amount lately, and i just finished reading Adrienne Clarkson's Autobiography and while I wish there was a bit more stuff about the office she held I did really enjoy her comments. I enjoyed the way she wrote as well, telling anecdotes and weaving her experience as governor general into almost every chapter and every experience.
She seems to have had quite an interesting life and i thought it came across well in the book. Her barbs are pointed, but fair(I would say)
I think she definitely raised the profile of the office and made into her own. I don't think we'll see a GG of her quality again for quite some time, certainly not (at least I don't see it happening) from Michaëlle Jean.
The other book I just started reading is that of Thomas Homer Dixon. His new book is called the upside of down. While I hope it's not too much of a repetition of the material that Jared Diamond tread over in his last book, i'm optimistic about it.
I got his first book, the Ingenuity Gap from my parents who found it in the bargain bin at Chapters. A bargain it certainly was, the book won the GG's award for non-fiction and I thought was an interesting book about the limits of human ingenuity.
I went to see him talk a few years ago, and he was certainly an interesting speaker. The panel was one to remember because it was only a few days after sept 11th, 2001. The topic was supposed to be something related to globalization but after some of the speakers couldn't come it was refashioned a bit and of course all the questions were about terrorism. It was interesting nonetheless and I was actually wodnering what had happened to Homer-Dixon just before I saw the new book.
The research I refer to in the title is the research I am doing for my history class. The history of tourism in Canada. I think I have a topic although i'm starting to have doubts about whether I really want to do it. So if anybody out there has suggestions of topics for a paper on Canadian tourism history i'd welcome the suggestions.
My topic is the Olympics in Calgary in 1988. I am curious in loooking at how such 'hallmark' events as they are called in the literature impact cities. The way in which they are promoted and the differences between promoting tourism and promoting an event like the Olympics and its impacts of tourism etc.
I'm curious if anyone out there has any other suggestions so send them in.
1 comment:
While I don't have any specific topics, I might reccomend looking at (surprise surprise) Newfoundland tourism. It might be interesting because with the collapse of the cod fishery tourism has become really important here, and I know some profs at Memorial are studying how much of how we sell ourselves is constructed, etc etc. Also, L'Anse aux Meadows is kind of interesting because when it was discoved, the little village it was in had virtually no contact with the outside world - you coudln't even drive there but had to get there by boat, and now they are a UNESCO world heritage site and get a fair amount of traffic ...
Anyway, that was a long post and probably not that helpful, but might give you an idea where to look ...
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