BOOK CELEBRATION - Colonialism, Capitalism, and Canada: A New History for the 21st Century

The Leo Panitch School is thrilled to host renowned historian and author, Bryan Palmer, for a celebration of his three volume history of Canada, Capitalism, and Colonialism!

This monumental work offers readers access to a clear-eyed understanding of Canada’s past, explaining how recently-acknowledged dark facts about our history are tied to the creation of a richly endowed, wealthy but very unequal first world country.

Cost: Pay what you can

How: Registration required

The evening will feature remarks from Bryan Palmer, as well as a panel of celebrated activists, organizers, and academics.

Feel free to bring cash as discounted copies of the books as well as other reading material and merch will be available for purchase!

Featuring the following panel…

Author - Bryan D. Palmer is the author of Revolutionary Teamsters: The Minneapolis Truckers’ Strikes of 1934 (Chicago: Haymarket, 2014), co-author of Toronto’s Poor: A Rebellious History (Between The Lines, 2016), and a past editor of the journal, Labour/Le Travail. He is Professor Emeritus, Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario.

Chair - Deb Cowen is a Tkaronto-based geographer recognized for work exploring the intersections of circulation, settler colonial infrastructure, and political economy. Deb serves as a trustee of the Groundswell Community Justice Trust and an editor with Katherine McKittrick and Simone Browne of the Duke University Press book series Errantries.

George Elliott Clarke is a University of Toronto prof, and has taught at Duke and Harvard. He was Toronto’s 4th Poet Laureate and Canada’s 7th Parliamentary Poet Laureate. George has been awarded the Bellagio Centre Fellowship (US), the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Fellows Prize, the Governor-General’s Award for Poetry, and the Premiul Poesis (Romania).

John Clarke was a longtime organizer with the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) until 2018. He was the Packer Visitor in Social Justice and presently facilitates Fighting to Win, a course for union and community activists, with the support of the Leo Panitch school.

Russ Diabo is a highly respected policy analyst and advocate with decades of experience championing Indigenous rights and sovereignty in Canada. A member of the Kahnawake Mohawk Nation, Russ has specialized expertise in federal policies, legislation, and processes impacting First Nations, particularly in land and resource management.

The Leo Panitch School for Socialist Education emerged in 2023, at a moment when popular frustrations abound over inequality, the narrowing of democracy, the squandering of human potential, and the ever-clearer reality of impending environmental catastrophe. It’s in this context that we strive to provide radical, accessible, and practical educational programming for those seeking to better understand and address the crisis of our current times.

Poster image: Voyageurs at Dawn, by Frances Anne Hopkins, 1871

Accessibility

The venue for this event is wheelchair accessible and features multiple gender neutral washrooms. We ask that participants refrain from wearing perfume or other scented products. Please contact us with any accessibility concerns.