Lawren Stewart Harris's artistic career began in the first decade of our century. Well known for the nationalist-inspired landscapes that he painted between 1908 and 1932, Harris turned resolutely in 1934 to the painting of abstractions. He continued to create works that reflected his own modernist and mystical developments until the end of his life. Canadians praise Harris's landscapes and admire him as a planner of innovative and heroic-sounding sketching trips into the North. He is also recognized as the chief organizer of the Group of Seven. A long list of younger artists he considered creative grealy benefited from Harris's encouragement and often generous, practical help; many of them have been interviewed for this book. In the lives of some Canadians harris still functions as a gurulike guilde -- a role he was quite content to take on during his own lifetime -- because of the spiritual content of his art and aeathetic writings and the example of his optimistic, vigorous and apparently untroubled life. But Harris's was not an untroubled life, and Light for a Cold Land examines his personal crises and difficulties, some of which caused important changes in his art. The book also uncovers the painting styles, artistic tensions and cultural dynamics of the German milieu in which Harris received his only formal art education. His student years in Berlin profoundly influenced not only his art but also his artistic politics and his philosophy. It is ironic that in the art of this most articulate of Canadian nationalist painters, there are extensive German influences. Light for a Cold Land is the first art-historical study of Laren harris that attempts to explore his life and all aspects of his career. It is based on extensive work in archives, libraries, public art galleries and private collections in Canada, as well as research in Germany and interviews with mambers of Harris's family and many of his friends, acquaintances, coleagues and critics.

David W. Mills offers an enlightening look at what most of the heartland was up to while America was united in its war on Reds. Cold War in a Cold Land adopts a regional perspective to develop a new understanding of a critical chapter in the nation’s history.

A young reporter wants so badly to be a foreign correspondent that he leaves his job in the U.S. And heads for Scandinavia to try his luck. He encounters a weird, white world and quickly finds himself covering the Cold War between Finland And The Soviet Union, For which he is denounced in Pravda. He finds himself writing for a journalistic giant, The New York Herald-Tribune, but which pays a pittance for his stories. He covers events in Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark, meeting such people as a Nobel Peace Prize winner, a Norwegian war hero, a singer/movie actress, a Prime Minister and a host of other interesting characters. He also meets and marries the girl of his dreams. Then, just as his money is about to run out, he unexpectedly wins a prestigious and lucrative journalism award that brings him back To The U. S. And recognition as a full-ledged foreign correspondent. Told in letters and rememberances, it is a story of suceeding against the odds in the Land of the Midnight Sun.