Beyond Brutal Passions

A social history exploring the intersections between those accused of prostitution, their neighbours, families, clients, and criminal justice.

During a time of significant demographic, geographic, and social transition, many women in early nineteenth-century Montreal turned to prostitution and brothel-keeping to feed, clothe, protect, and house themselves and their families. Beyond Brutal Passions is a close study of the women who were accused of marketing sex, their economic and social susceptibilities, and the strategies they employed to resist authority and assert their own agency. Referencing newspapers, parish registers, census returns, coroners' reports, city directories, documents of Catholic and Protestant institutions, police books, and court records, Mary Anne Poutanen reveals how these women confronted limited alternatives and how they fought against established authority in the pursuit of their livelihoods. She details these women’s lives not only as prostitutes but also as wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters who reconstructed the bonds of kinship and solidarity. An insightful history of prostitution, Beyond Brutal Passions explores the complicated relationships between women accused of prostitution and the society in which they lived and worked.

A study of the black experience in Montreal.

A study of the local school board as a key political and social institution in Protestant communities in Quebec.

Contains essays that depict and decry the rapid growth and disappearing natural landscapes of the Sunbelt

French settlers distanced the indigenous people and flora and fauna to create a landscape that by the mid-eighteenth century had become recognizably European. British industrialists and landowners attempted similar appropriations with far less durable results and the area remained a heartland of French-Canadian life, with a sense of cohesive community. This community spirit, rooted in agrarian landscape, was channelled into the developing sense of colonial nationalism of the 1820s and 1830s. Drawing on maps by explorers and surveyors, correspondence documenting the conflict between a backwoods priest and his parishioners, a gentlewoman's sketchbook, and the documents of a bitter court case between a seigneur's wife and a local priest, Coates illuminates the development of the region and the social, cultural, and economic ties and tensions within it, providing insights into the often hidden values of a rural community.

Using a family-reconstruction method, Gossage (history, U. de Sherbrooke) explores how the rise of industrial capitalism transformed the lives of the Quebec town's French-speaking, Catholic families. He draws on local registers and manuscript census schedules to focus on marriage, household organization, and family size in the context of the social and economic change. Among his findings are a growing divergence between bourgeois and proletarian families in regard to marriage and fertility patterns. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR

Ultra running is one of the world's fastest growing sports and in Ian Corless who runs the scene's most influential podcast, ultra-running has the perfect author to chronicle its rise. Running Beyond is a homage to the sport's legendary races, unique, commissioned photography, captures the diverse and striking terrain - from mountail peaks, to jungles and deserts. Through interviews with the legendary athletes of the sport, Running Beyond is the ultimate homage to the ultra-running world. Foreword by record-breaking, world number one, Kilian Jornet (Run or Die).