Jerry Bannister Like many Canadian historians, I have followed with interest the ongoing debate over John A. Macdonald, including the recent letter sponsored by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. Among the thoughtful responses to the letter, I’d highlight three points. First, as Andrew Nurse explains in Borealia, we should be wary of pro-Macdonald calls for “balance,” which… Continue Reading
Latest in: Nationalism
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Jerry Bannister Like everyone else this evening, I’m struggling to keep up with the news. What’s striking about the latest crisis in the United States is that, even at the very heart of American power, there remains so much confusion about what’s happening on the ground in Washington. Despite the ocean of tweets, there is… Continue Reading
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Patrick Mannion On October 4th, 1920, Irish-Canadian nationalist Katherine Hughes arrived in St. John’s, the capital and chief port of the Dominion of Newfoundland. Her objective was to establish a branch of the Self-Determination for Ireland League (SDIL) – a Canadian organization designed to win popular support for Irish independence during the peak of the… Continue Reading
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Benoît Grenier and Alain Laberge Following the release of Allan Greer’s latest book,[1] a colossal work of comparative history that we would like to salute from the outset, our distinguished colleague from McGill University has declared the inexistence of the seigneurial “system” (a declaration more pronounced in the original English version of his text[2]). Over… Continue Reading
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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
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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
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Jerry Bannister Adam Gopnik’s recent article, “We could all have been Canadians,” published in the May 15th issue of the New Yorker, has attracted considerable attention on social media among Canadian historians.[1] I’ve already chimed in with a short comment on Christopher Moore’s blog.[2] With the sun shining hopefully on my back deck this morning,… Continue Reading
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Rachel Bryant Canadian exceptionalism has emerged (or re-emerged) in the Trump/Brexit/Canada 150 era as a useful concept for scholars and journalists seeking to understand how Canadians and their institutions are (or are not) unique in hemispheric and global contexts. But exceptionalism is about more than the ways in which vast geopolitical entities relate to one… Continue Reading
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Oana Godeanu-Kenworthy On Nov 8 2016 reality-show star and billionaire Donald Trump won by a landslide the presidency of the US. Despite the still-ongoing collective head-scratching over the exact causes of the victory, nobody contests that the unlikely candidate rode an unprecedented wave of populism and nationalism whose long-term consequences remain to be seen. Trump’s… Continue Reading
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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
