Carl Berger – författare

Professor Berger aims in this book to ‘explore the rise, expression, and relative decline of the idea of natural history’ in Canada, during the age of Victoria. Science, particularly natural science, was then accessible to the general public in a way scarcely imaginable today. Natural history societies were set up in a number of cities and provided a focus for the descriptive and collecting activities of amateurs and incipient professionals. These societies acted as social clubs and vehicles for self-improvement as well as providing excellent training for the amateur scientist. The Baconian assumptions that inspired the Victorian collectors and scientists were one of the major victims of the Darwinian revolution, and their demise brought about the gradual decline of the natural history societies. Professor Berger considers also the sense of wonder and reverence with which Victorian Canadians, like their British contemporaries, looked at the varieties and delights of nature. The British tradition of natural theology had a great impact on the pursuit of science in Victorian Canada, leading naturalists and poets alike to seek in the uncharted flora and fauna of their new land the handiwork of a benevolent God. The author examines the impact of the discoveries of Darwin on this tradition and on the relations between science and religion, as the creator and the act of creation became more and more distant in time and more tenuously connected to the world of nature around us.His study provides many rich insights into the practice and theory of natural history in an age when even a veteran politician could look back and recall, with understanding and in detail, the world of nature in the countryside of his youth.

This new volume of the Literary History of Canada covers the continuing development of English-Canadian writing from 1972 to 1984. As with the three earlier volumes, this book is an invaluable guide to recent developments in English-Canadian literature and a resource for both the general reader and the specialist researcher. The contributors to this volume are Laurie Ricou, David Jackel, Linda Hutcheon, Philip Stratford, Barry Cameron, Balachandra Rajan, Robert Fothergill, Brian Parker, Cynthia Zimmerman, Frances Frazer, Edith Fowke, Bruce G. Trigger, Alan C. Cairns, Douglas Williams, Carl Berger, Shirley Neuman, Raymond S. Corteen, and Francess G. Halpenny.

Prior to the publication of The Sense of Power most studies of the Canadian movement for imperial unity focused on commercial policy and military and naval cooperation. This influential book demonstrated that the movement – which held that Canada could only become a great nation within the British Empire – was significantly influenced by its leading advocates’ belief in nationalism. Carl Berger explores the emotional appeal and intellectual context of this belief, arguing that these advocates’ support of imperial unity can be grasped only in terms of their commitment to certain conservative values and in relation to their conception of Canada.The Sense of Power was commended by the Toronto Star when it was first published as “entertaining as well as brilliant,” and in 2011 Ramsay Cook noted that “few first books, or for that matter few books, have made as marked an impact on the interpretation of a major theme in Canadian history.” This second edition brings to life the work’s incisive analysis and its important contribution to Canadian intellectual history.

Beginning with a brief account of the troubled historical past of this small country that had long known invasion and the threat of invasion, Carl Berger sets the stage for Korea's catastrophic hour resulting from World War II-the division of a once-united nation into two separate countries. It is this division, he maintains, that holds the key to the Korean tragedy.The book ranges from the Cairo Pledge to the present, examining the shifts in international diplomacy, Russia's change in attitude after Yalta and the death of Roosevelt, the intransigence of the Communist occupiers of northern Korea after the defeat of Japan. Berger also vividly describes the Communist invasion of South Korea and the conviction of President Truman that led ot the united Nations action to meet the challenge under the leadership of the United States. The bitter warfare of the "police action," the worldwide shock at the Chinese "volunteer" army's sudden entry into North Korea, the recall of General MacArthur, the struggles to work out an armistice, President' Rhee's despairing attempts to force the unification of his country and his final downfall-the entire dramatic story is unfolded in sequence.Carefully documented, The Korea Knot is an objective and detailed study that makes an important contribution to our understanding of the dilemmas-of war and peace, of freedom and repression-that still face a divided world.

Carl Berger here relates the fascinating story of the propaganda and subversion activities of both factions during the American Revolutionary War. The writings of the period, the archives and literature, are filled with intriguing references to "secret arts and machinations," some relating to incidents familiar to students of American history, others touching on events long since forgotten. This book for the first time brings these known and little-known events into perspective, examining in a single, authoritative narrative their role and importance.In his Preface to Broadsides and Bayonets, Berger explains the great effort which was made by the supporters of both causes toward effective and widespread psychological warfare. "During its eight-year progression the war gave birth to many divisive operations, well planned in some instances and often involving minority groups on the scene as well as Englishmen and Americans. Drawn into the colonial struggle were French Canadians and German mercenaries, Indian tribes and Negro slaves, Irishmen, and other peoples."Propaganda activities were not confined to the actual wartime period by any means. The newspaper and pamphlet attacks on the British started well before 1776 and brought to a fighting edge the spirits of the American colonists. Each major protagonist planned intelligent and extensivecampaigns to subvert and weaken the enemy camp. "It was a provocative war in which the atrocity story, kidnappings, false rumors, and bribery stirred the people. It was a conflict which inevitably spread to Europe and there engaged the talents of Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, in America's first organized overseas propaganda campaign."Broadsides and Bayonets is the absorbing study of the techniques of Revolutionary propaganda. The author encompasses a great lot of original material on the hot and cold war of the period, much of which has not been previously available in a single volume.