How do civilizations imagine themselves? One way is for each of us to look at ourselves through our society’s most remarkable figures. I’m not talking about hero worship or political iconography. That is a danger to be avoided at all costs. And yet people in every country do keep on going back to the most important people in their past.
This series of Extraordinary Canadians brings together rebels, reformers, martyrs, writers, painters, thinkers, political leaders. Why? What is it that makes them relevant to us so long after their deaths?
For one thing, their contributions are there before us, like the building blocks of our society. More important than that are their convictions and drive, their sense of what is right and wrong, their willingness to risk all, whether it be their lives, their reputations, or simply being wrong in public. Their ideas, their triumphs and failures, all of these somehow constitute a mirror of our society. We look at these people, all dead, and discover what we have been, but also what we can be. A mirror is an instrument for measuring ourselves. What we see can be both a warning and an encouragement.
These biographies of key Canadians are centred on the meaning of each of their lives. Each of them is very different, but these are not randomly chosen great figures. Together they produce a grand sweep of the creation of modern Canada, from our first steps as a democracy in 1848 to our questioning of modernity late in the 20th Century.
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RECENT NEWS:
14 APRIL 2008: ARTICLE FROM THE OTTAWA CITIZEN
13 APRIL 2008: REVIEW OF FIRST THREE BIOGRAPHIES IN
THE OTTAWA CITIZEN
12 APRIL 2008: INTERVIEW WITH DAVID ADAMS RICHARDS IN
THE DAILY GLEANER
5 APRIL 2008: ARTICLE ABOUT THE SERIES IN THE VANCOUVER SUN
31 MARCH 2008:
AN ARTICLE IN MACLEAN'S ABOUT THE SERIES
30 MARCH 2008: ARTICLE ABOUT SERIES IN THE TORONTO STAR
25 MARCH 2008: AN ARTICLE IN THE NATIONAL POST ABOUT THE SERIES AND DESIGN COVERS
FOR UPCOMING EXTRAORDINARY CANADIANS EVENTS, CLICK HERE.
TO VIEW PENGUIN CANADA'S PRESS RELEASE ABOUT THE SERIES,
CLICK HERE.
SEE ALSO PENGUIN CANADA'S WEBSITE.
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photograph by: Kate Szatmari Photography & Digital Imaging
(from left to right): Nino Ricci, Vincent Lam, Mark Kingwell, Charlotte Gray, David Adams Richards, Jane Urquhart, Adrienne Clarkson, Lewis deSoto, John Ralston Saul, Doug Coupland
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