nicole marie burton

I've read multiple accounts of the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, but this is the first I have ever heard of Ukrainians being imprisoned in Canada during World War I along with other immigrants who bore Austro Hungarian passports. The Canadian government used them as forced labor to build their own prison and clear forest land that was developed after the war for agricultural and other commercial purposes by third parties.

This adaptation of an anonymous personal narrative by one of the internees written in the 1940s is full of prisoner strikes and reactionary brutality by the police and guards. It's ironic that this occurred partly due to the Red Scare, but the poor treatment radicalized some of the prisoners and/or motivated them to join labor unions and engage in strikes after leaving the camps.

I am always freshly amazed by the amount of evil and darkness hidden in history's nooks and crannies.… (más)

Wonder Drug: LSD in the Land of Living Skies by Hugh D A Goldring is an interesting history of the drug and the research into its medical uses.

I want to comment about the use of a graphic format rather than a strictly textual one. I enjoy such books but always wonder why the decision was made. I think this was a particularly good choice for a couple reasons, the obvious being that a drug about a psychedelic drug lends itself to a visual format. And in that respect this book succeeds. But what I think makes it a very good option is that it might get the story into more hands and in a more appealing form. There are still plenty of people who have a kneejerk "war on drugs" reaction to the potential usefulness of any drug that has been used recreationally. By making the history less about arguing for or against picking up the research and more about the narrative of a specific time, place, and people it might lower the immediate response and allow for a more considered response. A reader may still come away thinking further research is not a good idea but I think it will be after seeing that there had been some success as well as some promising avenues that need more work.

I would recommend this to readers who simply want to know a bit about the history of LSD research, as well as those of us who might have fond memories of our own, um, research.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.… (más)