Alberta's North: A History, 1890–1950 by Donald Wetherell, Irene R.A. Kent (review)

270 letters in canada 2002 university of toronto quarterly, volume 73, number 1, winter 2003/4 Other developments examined by Shubert elucidate the relationship between the bullfight and Spanish society in general. The crowds attracted to the bullring confirmed its function as the site of a modern spectacle and engaged social anxieties about the mixing of classes and the potential for disorder and rebellion considered to be inherent in large groups. As part of the response to its novelty, the bullfight drew detractors and defenders who conducted a civil debate over its significance and its social impact, articulating their arguments in both economic and moral terms. Finally, in its political uses the bullfight traced the complex succession of regimes since the eighteenth century, from celebrations of royal authority and manifestations of nationalist sentiment to the >Liberation Bullfights= of the Franco government in the 1950s. Throughout, Shubert elucidates the emergence and development of the bullfight as a commercial spectator sport, in the larger context of Spain=s economic, social, and political history. Given the many excellent qualities of this study, it seems unfortunate that Shubert records no case of a bullfight held to celebrate the publication of a scholarly book. Rich in detail and pleasurable to read, Death and Money in the Afternoon marks a red-letter day for Spanish historical and cultural studies. (STEPHEN RUPP) Donald Wetherell and Irene R.A. Kent. Alberta=s North: A History, 1890B1950 University of Alberta Press 2000. $34.95 One of the great truisms of Canadian letters is that this country is fascinated by its northern districts. Canadian art galleries display countless paintings of northern landscape. Our nation=s poets and fiction writers speak eloquently of the trauma, challenges, and triumphs of northern life. Politicians from John A. Macdonald to Jean Chrétien have spoken with passion about the possibilities of northern development. Much of the celebration of the North, however, has focused on the territorial North B the >true= North. The vast expanse of the provincial North has attracted far less attention than it should. Alberta=s North is a major step forward in addressing this gap, for it is one of the very best historical studies of regionalism in the provincial North. Giving only brief attention to the development of the region before the 1890s, the authors devote the early chapters to the northward extension of federal government control into the area. They describe the early efforts by government officials to document and map the geological resources of the country and cover the debates about the need to extend treaty negotiations into the region. In one of the book=s most important chapters, >A Foundation for Development,= the authors trace the transition associated with the transfer of control from the federal to the provincial government and to the initial impact of government policies on northern Alberta. Considerable humanities 271 university of toronto quarterly, volume 73, number 1, winter 2003/4 attention is devoted to the evolution of northern life and, following the First World War, the informal division of northern Alberta into two sub-regions, one centred around the Peace River country and the other focused on developments around Fort McMurray. Because the book only covers the period to 1950, it does not discuss in detail the major expansion of the resource economy in the last half of the century. The chapters on the interwar years, however, describe the changing dynamics of an expanding resource sector and, in particular, document the impact of these changes on both the non-Aboriginal and the Aboriginal people in the region. Alberta=s North is, in many ways, a fine piece of work. Well-selected (if often too small) photographs illustrate the diversity and changing nature of regional life. The maps are useful and well presented. While a few topics, such as the Alaska Highway and CANOL projects in the Second World War, are dealt with in a perfunctory fashion, the authors have generally covered the main issues and events in appropriate detail. Particularly pleasing in a geographically focused work of this nature, Alberta=s North places regional developments in a national and thematic context. The book is written more as a foundational study than as...