Compass Points: Navigating the 20th Century

Agar Adamson is the author of Letters of Agar Adamson, 1914–19 and former chair of the Department of Political Science at Acadia University in Nova Scotia.

Compass Points is among the many titles published in 1999 that attempt
to portray the last century. In addition to history, politics, and
cultural studies, it devotes considerable attention to Catholicism.
Chodos served as the editor of Compass: A Jesuit Journal, and many of
the essays published here first appeared in that publication.

The book is divided into 10 sections, each covering a single decade.
The authors write from a Canadian perspective, although many of the
themes and topics are universal. The book is described as “a radical
new history of the twentieth century.” It’s difficult to see how
essays by Ramsey Cook, Blair Neatby, George Woodcock, Stanley B.
Ryerson, Eric Kierans, Michael Bliss, and Louis Balthazar could be
classified as controversial. No matter. These essays are both mainstream
and insightful.