Few Canadians over the age of forty can forget the feeling of joy and celebration that washed over the country during Canada's centennial year. We were, Pierre Berton reminds us, a nation in love with itself, basking in the warm glow of international applause brought on by the unexpected success of Expo 67 and pumped up by the year-long birthday party that had us all warbling "Ca-na-da," as Bobby Gimby and his gaggle of small children pranced down the byways of the nation. It was a turning-point year, a watershed year--a ...
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Few Canadians over the age of forty can forget the feeling of joy and celebration that washed over the country during Canada's centennial year. We were, Pierre Berton reminds us, a nation in love with itself, basking in the warm glow of international applause brought on by the unexpected success of Expo 67 and pumped up by the year-long birthday party that had us all warbling "Ca-na-da," as Bobby Gimby and his gaggle of small children pranced down the byways of the nation. It was a turning-point year, a watershed year--a year of beginnings as well as endings. One royal commission finally came to a close with a warning about the need for a new approach to Quebec. Another was launched to investigate, for the first time, the status of Canadian women. New attitudes to divorce and homosexuality were enshrined in law. A charismatic figure, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, made clear that the state had no place in the bedrooms of the nation. The seeds of Women's Lib, Gay Pride, and even Red Power, were sown in the centennial year. (Of all the pavilions on the Expo site, Berton singles out the Indian pavilion as having the greatest impact.) The country was in a ferment that year. Canadians worried about the Americanization of every institution from the political convention to "Hockey Night in Canada. "People talked about the Generation Gap as thousands of flower children held love-ins in city parks. The government tried to respond by launching the Company of Young Canadians, a project that was less than successful. The most significant event of 1967 was Charles de Gaulle's notorious " Vive le Quebec libre!" speech in Montreal. It gave the burgeoning separatist movement a newlegitimacy, enhanced by Rene Levesque's departure from the Liberal party later that year. Throughout the book, the author gives us insightful profiles of some of the significant figures of 1967: the centennial activists Judy LaMarsh and John Fisher; the Expo entrepreneurs, Philippe de Gaspe Beaubien and Edward Churchill; Walter Gordon, the fervent nationalist, and his rival, Mitchell Sharp; Lester Pearson and his "bete noire," John Diefenbaker; the three " men of the world" who helped make Canada internationally famous: Marshall McLuhan, Glenn Gould, and Roy Thomson; hippie leaders like David dePoe, American draft dodgers like Mark Satin, women's activists like Doris Anderson and Laura Sabia, youth workers like Barbara Hall, radicals like Pierre Vallieres (author of "White Niggers of America") and such dedicated nationalists as Madame Chaput Rolland and Andre Laurendeau. In spite of the feeling of exultation that marked the centennial year, an opposite sentiment runs through the book like dark thread: the growing fear that the country was facing its gravest crisis. Berton points out that we are far better off today than we were in 1967. " Then why all the hand wringing?" he asks. Because of " the very real fear that the country we celebrated so joyously thirty years ago is in the process of falling apart. " In that sense, 1967 was the last good year before all Canadians began to be concerned about the future of our country."
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Add this copy of 1967: the Last Good Year to cart. $2.68, very good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Dallas rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published 1997 by Doubleday Canada.
Add this copy of 1967 to cart. $6.70, very good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Baltimore rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Halethorpe, MD, UNITED STATES, published 1997 by Doubleday Canada.
Add this copy of 1967, the Last Good Year to cart. $18.00, very good condition, Sold by Ainsworth Books rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Sumas, WA, UNITED STATES, published 1997 by Doubleday Canada.
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Seller's Description:
Very Good+ in Very Good dust jacket. 0385256620. DJ and boards show light shelf wear.; A bright, solid book, dustjacket in Mylar, unclipped.; Large 8vo 9"-10" tall; 391 pages; "It was a turning-point year, a watershed year--a year of beginnings as well as endings. One royal commission finally came to a close with a warning about the need for a new approach to Quebec. Another was launched to investigate, for the first time, the status of Canadian women. New attitudes to divorce and homosexuality were enshrined in law. A charismatic figure, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, made clear that the state had no place in the bedrooms of the nation. The seeds of Women's Lib, Gay Pride, and even Red Power, were sown in the centennial year. "
Add this copy of 1967: the Last Good Year to cart. $22.00, like new condition, Sold by Callaghan Books rated 2.0 out of 5 stars, ships from New Port Richey, FL, UNITED STATES, published 1997 by Doubleday Canada.
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Fine in Fine jacket. Book Large, sturdy book, purple covers, silver lettering very bright on spine, title embossed at bottom front right, purple-tinted headlines in montage inside covers and adjacent end papers, 391 pages, three glossy photo sections. DJ glossy with red background, big silver 1967 on front, white lettering too, an Ottawa celebration on back. DJ has tiny tear and nick with very slight wear, also spine top right edge, and front spine indentation, light wear to spine top left edge. Near Fine DJ/Very Fine book.
Add this copy of 1967, the Last Good Year to cart. $99.74, new condition, Sold by GridFreed rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from North Las Vegas, NV, UNITED STATES, published 1997 by Doubleday Canada.
