Does History Matter?

What’s Wrong With Celebrating the War of 1812?

May 16, 2012
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This is the third in a weekly series of posts leading up to the mini-conference The War of 1812: Whose War was it Anyway? being held at the University of Waterloo on May 30th. By Ian McKay and Jamie Swift Warmonger politicians customarily indulge in high rhetoric, attempting to rally the citizenry round the flag [...]

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McGill’s Conclusions on its Ties to the Asbestos Industry: A Historian’s Response

May 14, 2012

By Jessica Van Horssen So the winter semester is over, and for those of us at Quebec universities, what a semester it’s been! Specifically, McGill University has had its share of drama this year, with strikes, occupations, computer hacking, and demonstrations against the Quebec government’s plans for tuition hikes. With all of these things going [...]

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Who Is A Founder? A Look at the Origins of the Canadian Environmental Movement

May 10, 2012

By Ryan O’Connor One of the challenges I confronted while researching my dissertation was figuring out who the founders were of Toronto’s pioneering environmentalist organizations. This might sound like a simple task, but records of this sort are often difficult to find. Sometimes the records that exist present a one-sided story. In Front Row Centre: [...]

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A spectre is haunting Europe…

April 30, 2012

By Dr Valerie Deacon No, this isn’t the beginning of Marx and Engels’ Communist Manifesto, though that spectre (of Communism) has played just as important a role as this one in twentieth century European history. Today’s spectre is the spectre of fascism and it is not only haunting Europe, but has also infected North America. [...]

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Solidarity Revisited: Resisting Cuts in Ontario

April 23, 2012

By Christine McLaughlin This past weekend I gathered with thousands of protestors at Queen’s Park who were demonstrating against pending public service cuts and wage freezes in Ontario. Spun in some quarters as a protest by organized labour, the crowd contained a multitude of groups. Many in the crowd wore “We Are Ontario” stickers, a [...]

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Remembering the Night to Remember: Titanic in Public Memory

April 13, 2012
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by Mike Commito This week marks the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the luxury ocean liner, R.M.S. Titanic. The vessel was on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York City when it struck an iceberg on the night of 14 April 1912, sinking in the early hours of the morning. The ship was [...]

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Gaming the Future, Parsing the Past: the EXtreme climaTe events prepaRedness and Adaption (EXTRA) Invitational Drought Tournament

April 5, 2012
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By Merle Massie A major drought of unknown intensity and duration is about to hit the Oxbow Basin in Canada. With a population of about three million people over a landbase of 175,000 square kilometers devoted primarily to agriculture, water management will consume all levels of governance, from the farmstead to the largest city. What [...]

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The Public’s Role in Active History

April 4, 2012
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by Jeffers Lennox Historians of Canada specifically, and academics generally, have found themselves of late at the business end of some harsh criticisms.  To believe the editorials in major newspapers, academics write about obscure topics for the benefit of a small handful of other academics; we find students and teaching to be a distraction from [...]

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Remembering Uganda

March 28, 2012

Laura Madokoro with Mike Molloy (President, Canadian Immigration Historical Society) This year marks the fortieth anniversary of the Ugandan Asian refugee resettlement movement to Canada. It is an event that not many people remember, or have even heard about. We believe it is something we should all know about – especially in the current climate when contentious debates over [...]

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History vs. Geography and Sourcemap.com

March 12, 2012

The interactive map above, produced by Leo Bonanni, the CEO of Sourcemap.com, demonstrates the impressive power of geographical analysis in the early 21st century. The map shows the supply chains for a typical laptop computer and provides a fascinating insight into the complicated mix of natural resources and manufacturing labour needed. It raises questions about [...]

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