Boozy and boisterous. The Georges – the communities of South Fort George and Fort George that ultimately became Prince George – acquired a seedy reputation for a century, at times branded the dubious title of Canada’s “most dangerous city.” Is Prince George really such a bad lad? The Notorious Georges explores how the pursuit of respectability collided with caricatures of a riotous settlement frontier in its early years. Anxious about being marginalized by the provincial government and venture capitalists, municipal leaders blamed Indigenous and mixed-heritage people, non-preferred immigrants, and transient labourers for local crime. Jonathan Swainger combs through police and legal records, government publications, and media commentary to demonstrate that the disorder was not so different from the rest of the province – and “respectable” white residents were often to blame. This lively account tells us about more than a particular community’s identity. It also sheds light on small-town disaffection in modern Canada.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1876.

A story of murder, intrigue, and a stolen painting portrays America as it might have been, had George Washington surrendered to George III

This book is a reappraisal of English politics in the first decade of George III's reign. It sets out to explain how party politics changed, and what problems that created for the parliamentary elite. The issues of party, of patriotism as it manifested itself in the elder Pitt's political career, and of the relations between the notions of ministerial responsibility and the powers of the Crown are all used to illuminate the nature of political conflict. Special emphasis is placed on Burke's notions of party. The schisms created by this reconfiguration of party politics, Dr Brewer argues, had effects beyond Westminster. He discusses extra-parliamentary forms of political expression, notably the press, and goes on to show how the career of John Wilkes and the critique of British politics developed by American radicals gave focus to a variety of political discontents, and produced new arguments in favour of parliamentary reform. Throughout his study he emphasises the interplay between popular and parliamentary politics. His work is designed to show that the 'political nation' included many other than the parliamentary classes, and that the political conflicts of the period cannot be properly understood without a full examination of political ideology.