By David Webster In Canada, some say, you can only get a new history museum by renaming an existing museum. In China, the 2010-1015 Five-Year Plan envisions opening 3,500 new museums. And this isn’t a matter of grandiose targets never to be achieved: by the end of last year, 4,000 museums had opened. The Chinese state’s efforts to control the… Read more »
Mahatma Gandhi’s name is synonymous with peace and saintliness almost everywhere on the planet. Yet in parts of postcolonial South Asia, Gandhi’s life, politics, ideologies, and legacy have been the subject of considerable controversy and even violent denigration. How, then, should we remember Gandhi? Misogynist tyrant or freethinking radical? Self-absorbed kingmaker or farsighted statesman? Economic genius or utopian fantasist? By… Read more »
By Lauren Wheeler I recently took a trip to a Calgary restaurant where the most iconic of Chinese-Canadian dishes originated. The restaurant is on Centre Street at 27th Avenue North and you would likely miss it unless you looked for the sign reading “Silver Inn.” Two colleagues from the Royal Alberta Museum (RAM) also made the trip from Edmonton to… Read more »
By Pam Sugiman This is the third in a series of posts originally presented as part of a roundtable entitled “What’s the Use of History? Citizenship and History in Canada’s Past and Present,” held in Toronto on October 16th 2012. The event was organized by the People’s Citizenship Guide Project. Personal memory and history As a contributor to this series… Read more »
By Benjamin Bryce Over the past century, the ‘mosaic’ and the ‘melting pot’ have emerged in North America as concepts to explain Canada and the United States’ relationship with immigration and cultural pluralism. The term mosaic traces its origins to John Murray Gibbon’s 1938 book, Canadian Mosaic, while the melting pot emerged in public consciousness as the result of Israel… Read more »
By Benjamin Bryce Canadians frequently draw comparisons to the United States, but they rarely extend their gaze further south. Nevertheless, in a number of areas, Canadian history has been connected to that of several other countries in the Americas. For example, the Canadian government’s policies toward aboriginal people find many analogies in other parts of the Western Hemisphere. In areas… Read more »
By Jay Young The Gin and Tonic – what better a drink during the dog days of summer? Put some ice in a glass, pour one part gin, add another part tonic water, finish with a slice of lime, and you have a refreshing drink to counter the heat. But it is also steeped in the history of medicine, global… Read more »
Next month will mark one year since the people of Japan experienced a devastating series of natural disasters. The earthquake and tsunami that hit parts of Japan on March 11, 2011, resulted in tremendous loss for the Japanese people. Many Japanese lost their lives while survivors lost homes, a sense of stability, and sense of place. Personal items and familiar… Read more »
Talking about race in Canada is a lot like talking about sex in the old days. There is so much imposed silence on the subject. We skip around it, pretend that it is not there, and pray that it will go away.
In Japan, August is the month of the dead. It is the time of the year when spirits of the dead are believed to return home and when millions of people return “home” to greet them. This past week, my family in Japan and I busied ourselves by cleaning the family tomb, sprucing up the household altar, and suffering… Read more »
