Reading the Entrails
An Alberta Ecohistory

Normal Charles Conrad

About the Book

Before the fall of Imperial Rome, priests cast the guts of sacrificial animals on the temple floor, claiming to be able to divine the future from these entrails. By probing the remains of Alberta's past sacrifices (reading the entrails), the author believes we might dimly see an apparition of Alberta's future.

This controversial book vividly portrays the history of land and life in Alberta from the Ice Ages to the present. Making no apologies for his criticism of government, regulators and large corporations, the author aims to strike a discussion at all levels by presenting his arguments intensely. For those interested in natural history, the environment and the future of Alberta's ecological resources, this provocative book is essential reading.

"This book teems with energy, challenge, bombast, and passion. It forces us to look at European expansion into Alberta in a new way. As I wrestled with the book's contents, I became angry, profoundly irritated, thoughtful, stimulated to refute the case presented, and finally, bludgeoned into grudging respect." - Simon Evans, Honorary Research Professor of History, Memorial University of Newfoundland

About the Author

Norman C. Conrad's involvement in advocay, law, primary industry and wilderness have provided him, a third generation Albertan, with a strong sense of the winners and losers in Alberta's progress and development.

Table of Contents

1. Icy Beginnings
2. First Peoples
3. Distant Rumblings
4. Bison Bounty
5. Hudson's Bay Company
6. Taking New Canaan
7. Trojan, Iron, War and other Horses
8. Whiteout
9. Sodbusting
10. Oil Moil
11. Bushwhacking
12. White Man's Caress
13. Strips, Laminates and Biomes
14. Roadkills on the Highway to Progress
15. The Salvation Band

Orders

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