A. B. McKillop

"Pierre Berion was a giant, a man known to virtually every Canadian. For many, he was not only an eminent journalist and storyteller, but also the man who defined their views on their country and on themselves. Now, award-winning author A. B. MeKillop brings us the first biography of this extraordinary man, from his birth in 1920 into modest beginnings in Whitehorse through his ascent to the status of cultural brand and national icon."--BOOK JACKET.

"Did H. G. Wells, author of The Time Machine and War of the Worlds, plagiarize the book that made his fortune?" "Published in 1920 at the peak of his career, the Outline of History was a sweeping chronicle of the world. A departure for Wells, who was best known for his autobiographical fiction and futuristic fantasy, The Outline became his bestselling book ever.". "Two years earlier, Florence Deeks, a "spinster" and amateur student of history, sent a similar work to Wells's North American publisher. Deeks intended to set the record straight by writing the first feminist history of the world. Her finished manuscript, which the publisher kept for eight months and returned in a dogeared condition, was ultimately rejected and never published.". "Upon publication of Wells's massive opus (1,324 pages), which he completed in a miraculous eighteen months, Deeks discovered similarities between the two texts. The books had matching structures, scopes, and even contained identical factual errors and omissions." "H.G. Wells, a known philanderer, usually had his way with women - not so with Florence Deeks. In 1925 Deeks launched a $500,000 lawsuit against Wells, claiming that in an act of "literary piracy," he had plagiarized her manuscript.". "From accounts of their contrasting lives, personal memoirs, and the courtroom transcript - where Deeks fought her case of plagiarism - McKillop weaves the story like a legal thriller. The Spinster and the Prophet is not only about a citizen's day in court, but about who is entitled to write history and who is not."--BOOK JACKET.

The only comprehensive history of the formative years of higher education in Ontario, this volume examines the shifting nature of moral, intellectual, and social authority as reflected in the development of Ontario's colleges and universities. With special emphasis on social experience and intellectual life, McKillop gives sustained attention to what was included - and what was not - in the teaching of subjects such as theology, classics, history, English, political science, law, medicine, engineering, business, psychology, and sociology. His insights reveal the imperatives that shaped these disciplines, and others, in distinctively Canadian ways. . Founded in the nineteenth century by various Christian denominations, the universities of Ontario initially reflected the acrimony and competition that existed between those denominations. Regardless of religious affiliation however, the university founders saw their purpose as the preservation of a basically conservative social order. The deeply held sense of continuity of a 'cultural memory,' rooted in the moral authority of Christianity and in British institutions and values, profoundly shaped higher education in the province, especially in the humanities. However, the market-driven tenets of an industrial economy took hold in Canada precisely in the years when the universities were founded. Colleges and universities founded to train clergy and a professional elite, and to provide a liberal education, were challenged and gradually transformed by values that linked them to the needs of commerce and industry. The universities were bound to demonstrate their social utility by creating practical and scientific programs. Each university in the province rose in its own way to the challenges posed by the acceptance and increasing enrolment of women, by political, economic, and social issues outside the universities, and by the close intertwining of the university in Ontario, especially the University of Toronto, with the political culture of the province.