The Last Day, The Last Hour: The Currie Libel Trial
1988
Published for the Osgoode Society by Carswell.
$26.25
Student Price $15.00
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Description
Books about trials readily capture the attention of a public interested in the drama of courtroom confrontation, and they offer an opportunity to present often complex legal issues in an appealing and readable format. In their reconstruction of past legal and judicial methods, they also serve to highlight the changes in law and procedure that have occurred over time.In this study, Professor (now Judge) Robert Sharpe has achieved all this and more. In 1927 an Ontario newspaper carried a column alleging that Sir Arthur Currie, in the final hours of the First World War, had shown reckless disregard for the lives of his troops in the pursuit of vainglory. Such rumours had been circulating for years, and Currie proceeded to meet them by initiating a highly risky action at law. These was much poignancy and some irony in the circumstances. A colleague had once said that he had 'an almost fanatical hatred of unnecessary casualties.' Currie evidently saw this trial as representing in a sense the final battle of the Canadian Corps. Like so many previous battles, however, this one exacted a high price, as Robert Sharpe so effectively illustrates in his reconstruction of this famous Canadian trial.
Professor Robert Sharpe ... particularly excels in developing the human drama being played out in the courtroom, while at the same educating his readers (whether lawyers or not) with the legal niceties of what is happening. C.O.D. Branson, The Advocate, vol 49, 1991
Uncommonly well written, interesting and thoughtful..... Unwilling to accept Sir Arthur's achievements and qualities at face value, Sharpe incisively summarizes the relevant military literature, disregards the idolatry and is convinced by the hard core of evidence. Roger Sarty, Ottawa Law Review , vol 21, 1989
