• Questions of Order: Confederation and the Making of Modern Canada – A Review

    Peter Price, Questions of Order: Confederation and the Making of Modern Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2021). Steve Penfold As an historical event, Canadian Confederation is very confusing. Multi-leveled, contradictory, endlessly complex – it has meant, and continues to mean, different things to a ridiculously wide range of scholars, politicians, and citizens. The British… Continue Reading

  • Britishness and Whiteness in Early Canadian Culture

    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

  • Confederation and Political Reason

    This essay is the second in a three-part series on Confederation that provides critical historical context for Canada’s sesquicentennial anniversary. The first essay was posted on 26 June. The third essay will be posted on 30 June. E.A. Heaman July 1 marks 150 years since Canadian Confederation. So what? Confederation is political history, a field… Continue Reading

  • Jamaican Maroons in Nova Scotia: The politics of climate and race

    Anya Zilberstein Not long after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau handed winter coats to Syrian refugees arriving in Toronto this past December, reports about the immigrants’ problems began appearing in the press. Rent gouging by dishonest landlords. Frustration at delays in receiving permanent housing and full access to medical care. And, of course, that obligatory storyline:… Continue Reading