Studying the plight of longshoremen in Vancouver is essential in understanding the
Canadian society which was made clear
in the book written by Andrew Parnaby. The book entitled
Citizen Docker: Making a New Deal on the Vancouver Waterfront is one of the best presentations to study and to understand
Canadian society in an enhanced way. The book regards as this drift, emphasizing on the Vancouver waterfront as a case into consideration. Andrew Parnaby was skillful in explaining the social conditions of the workers by means of presenting informative ideas. For him, much of the society was beginning to depend on local resources to augment respective income and consequently standards of living. The absence of government intervention in the chaos facing the industry was also seen in other sectors of Canadian economy, a reason being that there was so little that the state would have done to ensure comfort while the country was quickly developing in different spectrums.
Essentially, the author was able to assess the economic expansion of Canada during earlier era. He mentioned that the rapid economic expansion that was seen in Canada in the early 20th century was slightly disrupted by the economic downturn of 1930s and the Second World War. These periods are the time when international trade declines drastically and with it is the shipping industry that many had relied upon in Vancouver. This resulted to decline in the number of dockworkers and unions, which made the work of shipping companies easier at the Vancouver port. Therefore, Parnaby’s book is indeed a reliable reference for individuals interested in learning more of Canadian’s economic history, especially at the period that the country asserted its authority in international trade. Essentially, the main objective of the author is to present a picture of the complete social system and its operation. In this work, author has broken this myth and proved that family, society as well as nation has more or less the importance of each and every individual. That is the main objective of the author has been met.
The author arguments were anchored on the way laborers are treated in the society disregarding the fact that they are also important for social and economic progress. The book
Citizen Docker is a well structured work of the author which represents the several issues with its effective solutions. The historical background knitted behind has glorified the facts and effectiveness of the argument. Although the author of the book has been very successful in its language, he has a lacking of efficient proofs to make its argument stronger. For example, it can be detected in the book that Parnaby mentioned about employers who must voluntarily do more to improve the conditions for the men than unions have done, wherein he failed to prove the same statement. The above mentioned idea and observation weakened the basic theme of the work. Thus, there are some other facts and presentations which are making the work as a slight lighter than it should be. As far as the grammar and punctuations are concerned, author has been very successful in presentation.
Undoutedly, Parnaby has presented a wide range of expressions in forms of tables, photographs and bibliography to make the statements and the entire work authentic as well as interesting. Historical maps provided in the book have its own importance in tracing the expansion of the harbor. Other than maps, Parnaby provides photographs to illustrate the working conditions of dock workers, which could help readers in understanding the nature of workers. It helps to understand how they toil in the rapidly increasing port and the ever increasing amount of cargo that needed to be transferred. The pictures provide a vivid account of the masses working at the port during its rapidly growing stages.
Furthermore, the book can be considered as the best literary expressions and presentations since it has the historical facts, geographical structure and physiological conditions. In fact, it was not only expressed with facts and figures but it is a well-structured work which highlights the general picture of the contemporary trade, politics, society and the nation. The book
Citizen Docker also fulfills the ethical and moral responsibility of the literature by educating its reader towards the role of an individual for a society. The author has shown an enthusiastic interest in the presentation to prove the facts too but at some places it declines until some extent. Finally, the book is not merely a presentation of facts with some historical background but it is able enough to educate the reader about the society in a wider concept. The Canadian society is being studied in a broader way. Indeed, this book is useful for students and scholars primarily for research purposes. Andrew Parnaby has been doing well also in playing a role of an ethically sound and logically stronger analyst as it is always expected to a writer involved in such kind of presentations.