| This Side of Heaven: Determining the Donnelly Murders, 1880 Contributor(s): Feltes, Norman N. (Author) |
|
 |
ISBN: 0802044867 ISBN-13: 9780802044860 Publisher: University of Toronto Press OUR PRICE: $61.20 Product Type: Hardcover Published: June 1999 Annotation: What Personal Vendetta Motivated A Group Of Men In Southwestern Ontario, labelling themselves a 'Vigilance Society' to enter the Donnelly farmhouse on the night of February 3rd, 1880, 'and brutally bludgeon the family to death? According to the author, this is the wrong question to ask. In This Side of Heaven, a phrase be takes from the verse on the Donnelly family gravestone to signal his materialist approach, Norman Feltes suggests that this legendary event cannot be fully understood in a simple cause and effect narrative, but only as the historical product of the material contradictions that underlay Biddulph Township during the late nineteenth century. Factors such as the way the region was surveyed and settled, the emerging pattern of its canal and railroads in competition with the U.S., its distinctive wheat trade, and patriarchal gender relations in village and town, converged to 'overdetermine' the unique socio-historical site of the murders and the trials at which the vigilantes were acquitted. Using a marxist structuralist methodology the book draws the reader into a compelling web of economic, social, and geographical structures, showing how human actions, sometimes murderous, arise from forces larger than the individual. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - True Crime | Murder - General - Social Science | Criminology - History | Canada - General |
| Dewey: 364.152 |
| LCCN: 00551123 |
| Physical Information: 0.85" H x 6.02" W x 9.42" (1.11 lbs) 248 pages |
| Themes: - Chronological Period - 19th Century - Cultural Region - Canadian - Geographic Orientation - Ontario |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: What personal vendetta motivated a group of men, labelling themselves a Vigilance Society, to enter the Donnelly farmhouse in southwestern Ontario on that night in February 1880 and brutally bludgeon the family to death? According to the author, this is the wrong question to ask. In This Side of Heaven, a phrase he takes from the verse on the Donnelly family gravestone, Norman Feltes suggests that this legendary event cannot be fully understood through conventional narrative, but only as the historical product of the diverse economic, socio-political, and ideological conditions that underlay Biddulph Township during the late nineteenth century. Factors such as the way the region was surveyed and settled, the emerging pattern of its canal and railroads in competition with those of the United States, its distinctive wheat trade, and the patriarchal gender relations in its villages and towns, all converged in a unique set of forces that 'overdetermined' both of the murders and the trials at which the vigilantes were acquitted. Using a rigorous marxist structuralist methodology, the book draws the reader into a compelling web of economic, social, and geographical structures, showing how human actions, sometimes murderous, arise from forces larger than the individual. |
Contributor Bio(s): Feltes, Norman N.: - Norman N. Feltes is Professor Emeritus of English, York University. |