ActiveHistory.ca is happy to feature the inaugural talk of the Fall 2014 History Matters lecture series: historian Robert Rutherdale’s “Hometown Horizons: Local Responses to Canada’s Great War.” Rutherdale delivered the talk at the Toronto Public Library’s North York Central Branch. He explores issues such as the demonization of enemy aliens, wartime philanthropy, and state authority and citizenship – all while asking… Read more »
https://activehistory.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/CHA-Media-Panel.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadOn Wednesday May 28, 2014 as part of the Canadian Historical Association Annual Meeting, Activehistory.ca sponsored a roundtable discussion on the presence of Canadian historians in the media. The session was chaired by Ian Milligan of the University of Waterloo and featured Ian Mosby (McMaster University), Maureen Lux (Brock University), Sean Kheraj (York University),… Read more »
By Josh MacFadyen [First published by The Otter] The 2013 ice storm left hundreds of thousands of Canadians out in the cold and made some people pause to consider the fragility of urban energy systems in a changing climate. The idea of so many people spending Christmas in the cold made me reflect on some of the better-known cases of… Read more »
By Jim Blanchard It is well known that the adoption of conscription in Canada during the First World War was very unpopular in Quebec. Although many Quebecois volunteered to serve in the army in the first years of the war, large numbers of French Canadians disagreed with sending troops overseas when the country did not seem to be threatened. What… Read more »
On Tuesday May 27, 2014 as part of Congress 2014, a panel discussed the current government’s science policy, access to information, the ability of government scientists to communicate freely with each other, the public, and the media. This cross-disciplinary panel was jointly hosted by the Canadian Association of Professional Academic Librarians, Canadian Population Society, Canadian Society for the History and… Read more »
By Sean Kheraj As more of our reading moves from print to screens, learning how to write on the Web will become an increasingly important part of history writing skills. Just as we teach fundamental research and writing skills for print essays, we will likely begin to teach digital writing skills for the Web. Writing for the Web will also… Read more »
Previous Active History posts (see here, here, and here) have examined the use of comics in telling – and interpreting – stories about the past. In this post, Ryan O’Connor (RO) interviews Steph Hill (SH), the writer-artist behind A Brief, Accurate Graphic History of the Environmental Movement (Mostly in Canada). RO: This is a really interesting project. What is it that… Read more »
By Andrew Nurse “What Use is History?” This is the question asked by a 1958 article in The Royal Bank of Canada Monthly Letter. I will confess that I have no particular soft spot for the Royal Bank (even though, I suppose, it technically owns the house in which I live), but I was intrigued that a bank’s newsletter addressed… Read more »
By Christopher Schultz A kangaroo burger beckoned from the menu. It was a small taste of the exotic in London’s Mile End area, which is known primarily today as the site of Queen Mary, University of London’s main campus. After the third of four long days discussing “Perspectives on the ‘Great’ War,” an exotic burger seemed like a nice reward…. Read more »
ActiveHistory.ca is on a two-week hiatus, but we’ll be back with new content in early September. During the hiatus, we’re featuring some of our most popular blog posts from this site over the past five years and some of the editors’ favourite posts from the past year. Thanks as always to our writers and readers – see you again in… Read more »
