Jerry Bannister In March I had the pleasure of attending the Pierre Savard conference[1] at the University of Ottawa. I was asked to give a talk on the future of Canadian history, particularly the ongoing debate over transnational versus national perspectives. I never did get around to asking why they invited me to speak. Perhaps… Continue Reading
Latest in: Historiography
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Jeffers Lennox The American Revolution wasn’t simply American. The Early National period was hardly national at all. From 1774 to at least 1815, regional linkages and continental strategies shaped the development of American states and British provinces as people, policies, and ideas traversed a porous and fluid border. Ironically, loyal British colonies were less foreign… Continue Reading
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Thomas Peace When I first learned about Louis Vincent Sawatanen, about a decade ago, I thought that this Wendat man from Lorette was exceptional. Indeed, in many ways he was. Sawatanen was competent, if not fluent, in at least five different languages (Wendat, Mohawk, French, English, and Abenaki). At the end of the eighteenth-century, when… Continue Reading
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Bonnie Huskins This dapper fellow is known colloquially as “Loyalist Man.” He welcomes tourists to the Reversing Falls attraction in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada and until a few years ago, sat on the highway welcoming drivers into the “Loyalist City.” I would like to use him today to entice American scholars who are becoming… Continue Reading
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Daniel Laxer Historians tend to overlook the role of musical instruments in the Seven Years’ War. Few devote much attention to explaining how armies operated or battles played-out. Fred Anderson’s Crucible of War, for instance, does a terrific job explaining the origins and unfolding of events, but hardly assesses the experiences of soldiers on the… Continue Reading
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Denis McKim Donald Wright’s Donald Creighton: A Life in History is a splendid biography of one of English-speaking Canada’s greatest historians. The objective of this essay, which draws on Wright’s book, is twofold. First, it seeks to illuminate major aspects of Creighton’s writings on northern North America before the consolidation of Confederation, including the importance… Continue Reading
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Taylor Stoermer Much has been made lately of the rediscovery of the American Revolution by scholars as a series of questions that remain unresolved. Both veteran historians and those new to the field (although those groups aren’t mutually exclusive) are, through conferences and colloquia and online forums, exploring this ostensibly transformative event of the late… Continue Reading
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Elizabeth Mancke & Scott See In the months since the 19 October election, Canadians – from Justin Trudeau to church groups preparing for Syrian refugees – are reasserting one of the most recognizable tropes about Canada, that the country is an international leader in humanitarian aid and an advocate for multilateral and conciliatory approaches to… Continue Reading
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Stephanie Pettigrew In 1909, a scholar at Université Laval, M. J. E. Prince, conducted a public lecture in Québec to a captive audience on the subject of a recently published book on Acadia. The book, written by Edouard Richard, was reported as “cloué au pilori”—nailing to the pillory—both Charles Lawrence, the villainous British Governor of Nova Scotia… Continue Reading
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Robert Englebert Well before digital humanities was a hot commodity and seemingly a must for every grant application, I was cutting my teeth as a grad student and inadvertently became involved in digital history. Working for my PhD supervisor, Nicole St-Onge, at the University of Ottawa, I helped manage a team that digitized over 35,000… Continue Reading
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