In arresting, but harrowing, prose, James Daschuk examines the roles that Old World diseases, climate, and, most disturbingly, Canadian politics--the politics of ethnocide--played in the deaths and subjugation of thousands of aboriginal people in the realization of Sir John A. Macdonald's "National Dream." It was a dream that came at great expense: the present disparity in health and economic well-being between First Nations and non-Native populations, and the lingering racism and misunderstanding that permeates the national consciousness to this day. " Clearing the Plains is a tour de force that dismantles and destroys the view that Canada has a special claim to humanity in its treatment of indigenous peoples. Daschuk shows how infectious disease and state-supported starvation combined to create a creeping, relentless catastrophe that persists to the present day. The prose is gripping, the analysis is incisive, and the narrative is so chilling that it leaves its reader stunned and disturbed. For days after reading it, I was unable to shake a profound sense of sorrow. This is fearless, evidence-driven history at its finest." -Elizabeth A. Fenn, author of Pox Americana "Required reading for all Canadians." -Candace Savage, author of A Geography of Blood "Clearly written, deeply researched, and properly contextualized history...Essential reading for everyone interested in the history of indigenous North America." -J.R. McNeill, author of Mosquito Empires

"A former police academy classmate and protaegae asks Tracy to help solve a cold case that involves the suspicious suicide of a Native American high school girl forty years earlier. But as Tracy probes one small town's memory and finds dark, well-concealed secrets hidden within the community's fabric, her own life may be endangered"--

First Published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

A poetry debut that’s “a lush, lyrical book about a world where women are meant to carry things to safety and men leave decisively” (Henri Cole). Luminous and electric from the first line to the last, Allison Adair’s debut collection navigates the ever-shifting poles of violence and vulnerability with a singular incisiveness and a rich imagination. The women in these poems live in places that have been excavated for gold and precious ores, and they understand the nature of being hollowed out. From the midst of the Civil War to our current era, Adair charts fairy tales that are painfully familiar, never forgetting that violence is often accompanied by tenderness. Here we wonder, “What if this time instead of crumbs the girl drops / teeth, her own, what else does she have”? The Clearing knows the dirt beneath our nails, both alone and as a country, and pries it gently loose until we remember something of who we are, “from before . . . from a similar injury or kiss.” There is a dark beauty in this work, and Adair is a skilled stenographer of the silences around which we orbit. Described by Henri Cole as “haunting and dirt caked,” her unromantic poems of girlhood, nature, and family linger with an uncommon, unsettling resonance. Winner of the 2019 Max Ritvo Poetry Prize Praise for The Clearing “A dark and bodily nod to folk- and fairy-tale energy.” —Boston Globe “The poems in Adair’s debut draw on folklore and the animal world to assert feminist viewpoints and mortal terror in lush musical lines, as when “A fat speckled spider sharpens / in the shoe of someone you need.” —New York Times Book Review, “New & Noteworthy Poetry” “Like Grimms’ fairy tales, Adair’s poems are dark without being bleak, hopeless, or disturbing. Readers will find the collections lush language and provocative imagery powerfully resonant.” —Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

Clearing a Path offers new models and ideas for exploring Native American history, drawing from disciplines like history, anthropology, and creative writing making this a must-read for anyone interested in the history of indigenous peoples.