Up A Creek, With A Paddle: Tales of Canoeing and Life

Up A Creek, With a Paddle is an intimate and often humorous memoir by the author of Lies My Teacher Told Me (New Press, 2018), James W.

Loewen, who holds the distinction of being the best-selling living sociologist today.

Rivers are good metaphors for life, and paddling for living.

In this little book, Loewen skilfully makes these connections without sermonising, resulting in nuggets of wisdom about how to live, how to act meaningfully, and perhaps how to die.

Loewen also returns to his life's work and gently addresses the origins of racism and inequality, the theory of history, confronting institutional dishonesty, but mostly, as in his life, he finds rueful humour in every canoeing fiasco - and he has had many!

Amid the laughter and often self-deprecating humility, Loewen weaves together deep and important sociological ideas that penetrate the core of our social world, revealing why and how the world is marred by injustice and inequality.