• “What would Lord Durham advise?”

    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

  • Histoire et mémoire du régime seigneurial au Québec

    Olivier Guimond Benoît Grenier (dir.) (coll. Alain Laberge et Stéphanie Lanthier), Le régime seigneurial au Québec : fragments d’histoire et de mémoire (Sherbrooke, Les Éditions de l’Université de Sherbrooke, 2020). L’abolition du régime seigneurial, en 1854, a paradoxalement « consacré le maintien de la propriété seigneuriale[1] » au Québec. En effet, la Loi seigneuriale a prévu, pour les… Continue Reading

  • History and memory of the seigneurial regime in Quebec

    Olivier Guimond Benoît Grenier, ed. Le régime seigneurial au Québec: fragments d’histoire et de mémoire. In collaboration with Alain Laberge and Stéphanie Lanthier. (Sherbrooke: Les Éditions de l’Université de Sherbrooke, 2020). The abolition of the seigneurial regime in 1854 has, paradoxically, “ratified the maintenance of seigneurial property”[2] in Quebec. Indeed, in addition to a compensation… Continue Reading

  • Jacksonian America and the Canadian Rebellion – A Review by Mark R. Cheathem

    [This review, by an American-based scholar, is the second in a two-part series on Revolutions across Borders; a first, by a Canadian-based scholar, appeared on 13 January – Editors.] Mark R. Cheathem Maxime Dagenais and Julien Mauduit, eds., Revolutions across Borders: Jacksonian American and the Canadian Rebellion (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2019). If… Continue Reading

  • Jacksonian America and the Canadian Rebellion – A Review by Stephen R. I. Smith

    [This review, by a Canadian-based scholar, is the first in a two-part series on Revolutions across Borders; a second, by an American-based scholar, will appear on 20 January – Editors.] Stephen R. I. Smith Maxime Dagenais and Julien Mauduit, eds., Revolutions across Borders: Jacksonian American and the Canadian Rebellion (Montreal andKingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2019).… Continue Reading

  • Joseph Bouchette, copiste

    Alban Berson Il arrive fréquemment qu’un particulier attire l’attention d’une bibliothèque patrimoniale sur un document ancien qu’il détient. Cette personne s’est procurée d’une façon ou d’une autre un livre, une carte géographique ou encore un manuscrit, et serait disposée à s’en départir en faveur de la bibliothèque. Il convient alors d’en évaluer les valeurs patrimoniale… Continue Reading

  • Mapping Land Tenure Pluralism in the St. Lawrence River Valley

    Julia Lewandoski [This essay kicks off a Borealia series on Cartography and Empire-on the many ways maps were employed in the contested imperial spaces of early modern North America.]  After the 1763 Peace of Paris, British officials embarked on an ambitious project to probe and depict the territories—many in reality still under indigenous sovereignty—that they now considered… Continue Reading

  • Francophone Quebecers in Canada’s Odyssey: Pillar or Passengers?

    Peter H. Russell’s Canada’s Odyssey is a sweeping reconsideration of the foundations of Canada’s constitutional order that has garnered considerable attention and praise. This essay is the second in a three-part series assessing the book’s significance. Donald Fyson My comments focus on the pre-Confederation chapters of Peter Russell’s Canada’s Odyssey. I’ll concentrate on Quebec and… Continue Reading