Max Wallace
Encyclopedia
Who Killed Kurt Cobain?
Wallace coauthored the international bestsellerBestseller
A bestseller is a book that is identified as extremely popular by its inclusion on lists of currently top selling titles that are based on publishing industry and book trade figures and published by newspapers, magazines, or bookstore chains. Some lists are broken down into classifications and...
Who Killed Kurt Cobain? with Ian Halperin
Ian Halperin
Ian Halperin is a Canadian investigative journalist and writer from Montreal, Quebec whose 2009 book, Unmasked: The Final Years of Michael Jackson was a #1 best-seller on the New York Times list on July 24, 2009. He is the author or coauthor of nine books including Celine Dion: Behind the...
in 1998, (described as a "judicious presentation of explosive material" by The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
).
Love and Death: The Murder of Kurt CobainLove and Death: The Murder of Kurt CobainLove and Death: The Murder of Kurt Cobain, published by Simon & Schuster, is a collaborative investigative journalism book written by Ian Halperin and Max Wallace purporting to show that rock star Kurt Cobain, believed to have committed suicide, was in fact murdered, possibly at the behest of his...
Published in 2004, Wallace wrote Love and Death: The Murder of Kurt Cobain with Halperin, which reached the New York Times bestseller list.The American Axis: Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh and the Rise of the Third ReichThe American Axis: Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh and the Rise of the Third ReichThe American Axis: Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh and the Rise of the Third Reich is a book by the Canadian journalist and Holocaust researcher Max Wallace, published in 2003. The book discusses the anti-Semitic views of Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh, their connection with Nazi Germany and their...
This work, about the Nazi sympathies of two American icons, received a cover endorsement by two-time Pulitzer-prizePulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
winning historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr..
Muhammad Ali's Greatest Fight: Cassius Clay vs. the United States of America
Written in 2000, this book covers Muhammad AliMuhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali is an American former professional boxer, philanthropist and social activist...
's long battle against the US government over his stand against the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
. Ali wrote the foreword. The book is currently in development as a major motion picture.
Film
Wallace is also a documentaryDocumentary
A documentary is a creative work of non-fiction, including:* Documentary film, including television* Radio documentary* Documentary photographyRelated terms include:...
filmmaker whose first film, Too Colorful for the League, about the history of racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
in hockey
Hockey
Hockey is a family of sports in which two teams play against each other by trying to maneuver a ball or a puck into the opponent's goal using a hockey stick.-Etymology:...
for CBC TV, was nominated for a Gemini Award
Gemini Award
The Gemini Awards are annual television broadcasting industry awards in Canada.First awarded in 1986, the Geminis celebrate the achievements of TV members of the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television. Essentially, it presents awards for the best television productions in Canada. Awards are...
. Wallace has also contributed to the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
and the Sunday New York Times. His second film, Schmelvis, had a US theatrical release and played in more than 75 film festivals around the world. In the 1990s, Wallace founded both the Ottawa Folk Festival and the Ottawa International Busker Festival when employed as station manager for CKCU community radio
Community radio
Community radio is a type of radio service, that offers a third model of radio broadcasting beyond commercial broadcasting and public broadcasting. Community stations can serve geographic communities and communities of interest...
.
In the 1990s, he worked for several years with Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...
's Shoah Foundation
Shoah Foundation
Shoah foundations are organizations that are formed to further the remembrance of the Holocaust of World War II. There are currently two major foundations that are internationally active.-Major Shoah Foundations:...
, recording the video testimonies of Holocaust survivors.
Activism
Wallace was a prominent activist in the anti-ApartheidAnti-apartheid
Anti-apartheid may refer to any opposition to the former South African apartheid policy. More specifically, it may refer to:* Anti-Apartheid Movement, British organisation* The internal resistance to South African apartheid within South Africa...
and peace movements and has worked with two Nobel Peace Prize
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel.-Background:According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who...
winners, Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing...
and Rigoberta Menchu
Rigoberta Menchú
Rigoberta Menchú Tum is an indigenous Guatemalan, of the K'iche' ethnic group. Menchú has dedicated her life to publicizing the plight of Guatemala's indigenous peoples during and after the Guatemalan Civil War , and to promoting indigenous rights in the country...
, on international human rights causes, and with Ralph Nader
Ralph Nader
Ralph Nader is an American political activist, as well as an author, lecturer, and attorney. Areas of particular concern to Nader include consumer protection, humanitarianism, environmentalism, and democratic government....
founding the Quebec Public Interest Research Group in the 1980s. He is currently active in issues around refugee advocacy, children's rights
Children's rights
Children's rights are the human rights of children with particular attention to the rights of special protection and care afforded to the young, including their right to association with both biological parents, human identity as well as the basic needs for food, universal state-paid education,...
, food security
Food security
Food security refers to the availability of food and one's access to it. A household is considered food-secure when its occupants do not live in hunger or fear of starvation. According to the World Resources Institute, global per capita food production has been increasing substantially for the past...
, organic gardening and urban agriculture
Urban agriculture
Urban agriculture is the practice of cultivating, processing and distributing food in, or around, a village, town or city. Urban agriculture in addition can also involve animal husbandry, aquaculture, agro-forestry and horticulture...
, affordable housing
Affordable housing
Affordable housing is a term used to describe dwelling units whose total housing costs are deemed "affordable" to those that have a median income. Although the term is often applied to rental housing that is within the financial means of those in the lower income ranges of a geographical area, the...
, environmental and social justice
Social justice
Social justice generally refers to the idea of creating a society or institution that is based on the principles of equality and solidarity, that understands and values human rights, and that recognizes the dignity of every human being. The term and modern concept of "social justice" was coined by...
education, child poverty
Child poverty
Child poverty refers to the phenomenon of children living in poverty. This applies to children that come from poor families or orphans being raised with limited, or in some cases absent, state resources. Children that fail to meet the minimum acceptable standard of life for the nation where that...
, and international human rights. He continues to promote the International Victory Gardens Network ("Plant a Victory Garden, help win the war against hunger") that he started in 2001, helping to bring urban agriculture
Urban agriculture
Urban agriculture is the practice of cultivating, processing and distributing food in, or around, a village, town or city. Urban agriculture in addition can also involve animal husbandry, aquaculture, agro-forestry and horticulture...
and food security to marginalized and socially isolated communities throughout the world in the spirit of the World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
victory garden
Victory garden
Victory gardens, also called war gardens or food gardens for defense, were vegetable, fruit and herb gardens planted at private residences and public parks in United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Germany during World War I and World War II to reduce the pressure on the public food supply...
s which helped the Allies win the war. In 2009, he won the David Suzuki Foundation
David Suzuki Foundation
The David Suzuki Foundation is an environmental organization based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada It is a non-profit organization that is incorporated in both Canada and the United States, and is funded by over 40,000 donors...
's "David Suzuki Digs My Garden" contest for best organic ornamental garden in Canada. He is also Parliamentary Liaison of the Drop the Fee Campaign, aiming to eliminate the Refugee Processing Fee that serves as a barrier to countless immigrants and refugees in Canada.
Published works
- Who Killed Kurt Cobain? with Ian HalperinIan HalperinIan Halperin is a Canadian investigative journalist and writer from Montreal, Quebec whose 2009 book, Unmasked: The Final Years of Michael Jackson was a #1 best-seller on the New York Times list on July 24, 2009. He is the author or coauthor of nine books including Celine Dion: Behind the...
in 1998 - Muhammad Ali's Greatest Fight: Cassius Clay vs. the United States of America (M. Evans & Co., 2000)
- The American Axis: Ford, Lindbergh, and the Rise of the Third Reich (St. Martin's Press, 2003)
- Love & Death: The Murder of Kurt Cobain with Ian Halperin (Simon & Schuster, 2004)