• Flattened History

    Mack Penner This post is the first in a series of essays derived from The Future of Knowledge Mobilization and Public History Online workshop which was held in late August 2024 at Huron College, London, Ontario. Borealia will cross-post the essays as they appear on Active History. The opening session of Active History’s late-August workshop on knowledge mobilization and… Continue Reading

  • Wounded Feelings: How to Sue for Emotional Distress (Review)

    Katie Barclay Eric H. Reiter, Wounded Feelings: Litigating Emotions in Quebec, 1870-1950 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press for the Osgood Society for Canadian Legal History, 2019), pp. 482 + xiii. This week as I write this (much delayed – sorry editor) post, my university is running its consultation with staff about improving workplace culture about… Continue Reading

  • Canadian History After COVID-19

    Denis McKim Thomas Paine likened the American Revolution to the deluge. In much the same way that God had hit the “reset button” on history itself through the flood recounted in Genesis, the United States had initiated a new epoch by revolting against British rule and launching what Paine hoped would become an egalitarian republic.… Continue Reading

  • Liberal-Whig History

    Robert W. Passfield What has been termed ‘Whig History’ is a Liberal historiography that views history teleologically in terms of the progress of humanity towards enlightenment, rationalism, scientism, secularism, and the freedom of the individual. As attested by Herbert Butterfield (The Whig Interpretation of History, 1931) Whig history is characterized by presentism, a distinct historical… Continue Reading