Archives: Reviews

Food and the City Review Jennifer Cockrall-King A\J AlternativesJournal.ca

Food and the City: Urban Agriculture and the New Food Revolution

Huge supermarket chains appear to be bursting at the seams with food choices, but this is mostly an illusion. The reality is that 75 per cent of our crop biodiversity has been lost. Our industrial food system has created too many overweight, undernourished citizens. The environmental degradation caused by multinational-scale […]

Hiroshima Nagasaki Download web screenshot A\J AlternativesJournal.ca

Hiroshima Nagasaki Download

Driven by curiosity, artist and filmmaker Shinpei Takeda travelled with a friend along the west coast of Canada, the US and Mexico to visit immigrant survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs and document their gripping, lingering stories of pain, suffering and loss. His documentary begins with a stark […]

Louis Helbig Sunken Villages A\J AlternativesJournal.ca

Louis Helbig: Sunken Villages

Canada has had its share of massive, global-scale industrial development, including the Alberta oil sands and the James Bay Hydroelectric Project. The construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1958 was one of the biggest industrial projects of its time. The US$470-million project, meant to open the Great Lakes to […]

review_GrowingResistance_600px

Growing Resistance: Canadian Farmers and the Politics of Genetically Modified Wheat

A celebration of cooperative action in the face of corporate power and control, Growing Resistance is a must-read for academics engaged in the debate over genetically modified (GM) crops in Canada. Emily Eaton, an assistant professor of geography at the University of Regina, provides a detailed account of the successful resistance […]

Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Sebastião Salgado A\J AlternativesJournal.ca

Sebastião Salgado: Genesis

A mushroom island of Baobab trees perched atop the Bay of Moramba. A leopard’s gaze as it drinks from a water pool in the blackness of night. A group of nomadic Nenets surrounded by the hostile Siberian tundra. This is but a glimpse of Sebastião Salgado’s Genesis, an environmental art exhibit […]

The Energy of Slaves book review A\J AlternativesJournal.ca

The Energy of Slaves: Oil and the New Servitude

Most of us think little about slavery, convinced that this scourge is behind us. Canadian journalist (and A\J columnist) Andrew Nikiforuk’s new book claims otherwise, arguing that servitude has not vanished but merely changed form. Today’s slavery is not confined to Jews or Africans, but encompasses all of us who […]

Behavior of North American Mammals book review A\J AlternativesJournal.ca

Peterson Reference Guides: Behavior of North American Mammals

Roger Tory Peterson, one of the world’s greatest and most decorated naturalists, literally invented the modern field guide. His Guide to the Birds, published in 1934, broke new ground by targeting neophytes instead of specialists. It launched an award-winning career in which Peterson played a key role in fostering broader […]

Nothing Like Chocolate film review A\J AlternativesJournal.ca

Nothing Like Chocolate

Chocolate is one of life’s great pleasures. The perfect food, chocolate is fuel for flagging spirits, an inspiration, a temptation and, for some, a sacrament. Yet most consumers of mass-produced chocolate may be unaware of their beloved confection’s dark side. Child slave labour in West African cocoa plantations haunts the […]