Champagne and Meatballs: Adventures of a Canadian Communist (Working Canadians: Books from the CCLH) - Softcover

Whyte, Bert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1926836081 ISBN 13: 9781926836089

Publisher: Athabasca University Press, 2011

Synopsis

Active for over 40 years with the Communist Party of Canada, Bert Whyte was a journalist, an underground
party organizer and soldier during World War II, and a press correspondent in Beijing and Moscow. But any notion of him as a Communist Party hack would be mistaken. Whyte never let leftist ideology get in the way of a great yarn. In Champagne and Meatballs--a memoir written not long before his death in Moscow in 1984--we meet a cigar-smoking rogue who was at least as happy at a pool hall as at a political meeting. His stories of bumming across Canada in the 1930s, of combat and comaraderie at the front lines in World War II, and of surviving as a dissident in troubled times make for compelling reading.

The manuscript of Champagne and Meatballs was brought to light and edited by historian Larry Hannant, who has written a fascinating and thought-provoking introduction to the text. Brash, irreverent, informative, and entertaining, Whyte's tale is history and biography accompanied by a wink of his eye--the left one, of course.

About this title

Book Description:

Cigar-smoking rabble-rouser and Communist Bert Whyte was known by many as a most charming storyteller.

About the Author:

Larry Hannant teaches at Camosun College and the University of Victoria. He is the author The Infernal Machine: Investigating the Loyalty of Canada's Citizens.

About this edition

• Publisher: Athabasca University Press
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1926836081
• ISBN 13: 9781926836089
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256