Mark R. Anderson The king’s face had been “smeared with tar, with a necklace of potatoes around the neck from which was suspended a wooden Cross with this inscription— VOILÁ LE PAPE DU CANADA ET LE SOT ANGLOIS [This is the Pope of Canada and the Fool of England].” On the morning of May 1,… Continue Reading
Latest in: British Empire
-
-
E.A. Heaman No, “not assimilate your French”: I think he’s been misread. Lord Durham would have better advice than that because he lived in a world not unlike our own. Devastating and state-discrediting pandemic? Check. Disaffected fringe looking to topple the state? Check. Popular American violence lending strength to popular violence everywhere, including Canada? Check.… Continue Reading
-
Peter William Walker Earlier this year, activists in Canada toppled statues of Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II amid nationwide protests at the Canadian residential school system. In Canada, much of the conversation surrounding the residential schools has focused on the responsibility of the churches (which ran them) and the Canadian government (which funded them).… Continue Reading
-
Ollivier Hubert and François Furstenberg, eds., Entangling the Quebec Act: Transnational Contexts, Meanings, and Legacies in North America and the British Empire (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2020). Adam Nadeau In Entangling the Quebec Act: Transnational Contexts, Meanings, and Legacies in North America and the British Empire, editors Ollivier Hubert and François Furstenberg present… Continue Reading
-
Todd Webb Denis McKim, Boundless Dominion: Providence, Politics, and the Early Canadian Presbyterian Worldview (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2017). Writing about Wesleyan Methodism in Canada, or most anywhere else in the world for that matter, obliges the dutiful historian to begin with the founding moment at ‘about a quarter before nine’ on the… Continue Reading
-
Amanda Murphyao [This is the ninth essay of the Borealia series on Cartography and Empire–on the many ways maps were employed in the contested imperial spaces of early modern North America.] In his 1814 “Map of Cabotia,” John Purdy proposed the name “Cabotia” for Canada. Since Purdy noted that any “future improvement” for the map would be welcome,… Continue Reading
-
S. Max Edelson [This is the eighth essay of the Borealia series on Cartography and Empire–on the many ways maps were employed in the contested imperial spaces of early modern North America.] This essay examines the Board of Trade’s survey and plan for St. John Island (renamed Prince Edward in 1798). It is part of a larger study… Continue Reading
-
Zachary A. Tingley Lighthouses, once a lifesaving beacon of hope for mariners facing the elements, are themselves now in need of rescue. In communities up and down the Atlantic coast, local communities have organized to preserve lighthouses that, while being in need of a great deal of repair because of federal neglect, remain iconic in… Continue Reading
-
Shirley Tillotson Editors’ note: This essay is jointly posted with our partners at ActiveHistory.ca, and appeared in an earlier version as a Letter to the Editor in the National Post (Oct. 26, 2017). Fundraisers love anniversaries. They’re like birthdays, right? Presents can’t be far behind. But when it’s the anniversary of a death, it’s not so… Continue Reading
-
Oana Godeanu-Kenworthy In the September 28, 2017 issue of the New York Review of Books, Fintan O’Toole explained Brexit as the consequence of a rebirth of English nationalism: “Brexit is a peaceful revolution but it is unmistakably a nationalist revolt. It is England’s insurrection against … the belief that contemporary nationality must be fluid, open,… Continue Reading