By Joseph Tohill Less than two weeks to go in the US presidential election campaign, and the candidates are (surprisingly) running neck and neck. The sense of disappointment in incumbent President Barack Obama is palpable, especially after his sleepy first debate performance turned what should have been a runaway race into a real contest. Of course, the current disappointment is… Read more »
We failed Kimberly Rivera because we left the arguments against letting war resisters stay in Canada unchallenged as the Government of Canada and their supporters’ misused history to persecute soldiers of conscience.
By Thomas Peace I may be cursed. Everywhere I move flooding seems to follow. Last fall, my family and I moved to White River Junction, Vermont. On an apartment hunt, my father and I arrived in the Green Mountain State immediately following Hurricane Irene. Pulling into Rutland we were told that there were no roads open that crossed the state… Read more »
By Daniel Ross How do we create art about history? Can we make it powerful, relevant, and pedagogical? What happens when the people whose lives and struggles we portray are still alive – and in the audience? Anyone making art about the past has to come to grips with questions like these. But it’s rare to find artists comfortable enough… Read more »
On Monday afternoon Christopher Dummitt responded to my Active History post “Colonialism and the Words We Choose” on his blog Everyday History. In his critique Dummitt argues that Monday’s post is representative of how disconnected some academic historians are from everyday society. He suggests that the argument I make is fuelled by a drive to avoid talking about inequality in the past.
Although the lingo in modern scholarship may be less offensive than my tour guide a couple of weeks ago, the message in Merrell’s essay is that similar trends continue among professional historians. Despite broader inclusion of Native people as a subject studied by historians, North American history remains a discipline anchored in a European tradition.
By Dr. Joseph Tohill There’s nothing like a bit of neoconservative propaganda gussied up as a hip, edgy CBC radio program to get your blood boiling on a hot summer’s day. The Invisible Hand, a mid-week staple of Radio One’s summer schedule hosted by Vancouver broadcaster Matthew Lazin-Ryder, bills itself as “a defiantly non-dismal take on the ‘dismal science’ of… Read more »
https://activehistory.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/The-War-of-1812-Whose-War-Was-It-Anyway-Roundtable-May-30-2012.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadBy Jay Young Not only are interpretations of war up for debate; the reasons behind how and why we remember it are too. On May 30th 2012 a packed Waterloo Public Library hosted a roundtable titled “Whose War Was It, Anyway?” Organized by the Active History Canadian Historical Association (CHA) Committee and supported by… Read more »
By Daniel Macfarlane Nik Wallenda’s impending and controversial tightrope walk across Niagara Falls, set for June 15, is just the most recent in a long line of such spectacles (e.g. actually going over the falls!) at the iconic cataract. Given the banality of the carnivalesque at the Niagara Falls – just think of circus-style attractions – it has often interpreted… Read more »
By Jay Young Like many people, I anticipated the return of Mad Men (AMC, Sundays, 10 pm EST), one of television’s most acclaimed series of the past decade. Now in its fifth season, the show looks at the life of Don Draper and other workers in the New York advertising industry during the 1960s. At the same time that I… Read more »
