Do Historians Believe the Kingdom is United? History Curriculums and National History

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By David Zylberberg

Benedict Anderson famously wrote that nations are Imagined Communities brought together by a vision of common identity. The ways in which history is taught and understood play an important role in fostering national commonality. Many current countries do not have that sense of common identity. Such countries are held together by chance, inertia, military force or the cost-benefit analysis of referendum voters. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is one such country since most Scottish or English people do not see themselves as part of the same nation.

Scotland and England have shared a monarch since 1603 and have been formally united since the Act of Union in 1707. At that point, the Scottish Parliament ceased to exist and representatives were sent to Westminster. In 1999, the Scottish Parliament was resurrected with jurisdiction over some regional services. Currently, the Scottish National Party forms a majority government and it has promised a referendum on secession for 2014.

Scotland has been integral to the United Kingdom of Great Britain since its inception. Moreover, English was the most common language of Scotland prior to that and most Scots have always lived in the Lowlands. The northern portion of the island also underwent similar social and cultural developments to southern regions throughout the last half millennia. Due to their many similarities and shared political heritage, it would not be difficult to construct a coherent national history that incorporated the island’s shared social, cultural, political and economic developments. Yet this does not usually happen. Continue reading →

Commemorating war and the environment through non-human species

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Canadian Mounted Rifles, ca. 1914-1918, Library of Congress, LC-USZC4-12402

Canadian Mounted Rifles, ca. 1914-1918, Library of Congress, LC-USZC4-12402

By Kaitlin Wainwright

In November 2012, the Canadian government unveiled three plaques and a bronze statue of a dog in Ottawa’s Confederation Park, adjacent to the South African War Memorial. These were the first commemorative efforts in Canada in 75 years that foregrounded the role of animals in war.

The environment is, at best, an emerging theme in Canadian military history narratives. One might argue that this is because major Canadian conflicts in recent memory have been fought on the soil of others and the effects of war on the environment have been less visible than the effects of war on individuals.[1] The stories of animals in combat provide an opportunity to bridge this long-existing gap in the larger narrative of warfare. Continue reading →

History Slam Podcast Episode Thirty-One: Don Cummer, Brothers At War, and Historical Fiction

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By Sean Graham

Front cover of Don Cummer's Brothers At War

Front cover of Don Cummer’s Brothers At War

I can understand if there are people who scoff at the thought of another book on the War of 1812. Given the onslaught of commemoration of the war over the past two years, I’ve definitely sensed some fatigue on the part of some historians. From the television commercials to museum exhibitions to two episodes of the History Slam podcast, the War of 1812 has been almost inescapable lately. As a result, some people might view Brothers At War by Don Cummer as yet another work of commemoration. Those people would be greatly mistaken, however, and missing out on a terrific book.

Brothers At War is not a history of the War of 1812, but rather a historical fiction set in Upper Canada during the months leading to war. The story follows adolescent best friends Jacob and Eli as they deal with bullies and bad teachers, but under the surface something greater is brewing. With the story being set against the coming of war, the fact that Eli is an American immigrant and his father has refused to take the oath of allegiance to the King adds tension to the story. It is not a book about the War, but rather a book whose characters are affected by the War.
Continue reading →

Indigenous History in the Classroom: Four Principles, Four Questions

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By Carolyn Podruchny 

Is teaching Indigenous history any different than teaching other histories? This question was posed to organizers of a day-long Teaching History Symposium on history, heritage, and education for Toronto area public school teachers, heritage experts, graduate students, and faculty members in the History Department at York University.[1] Rather than providing an answer, I suggest more questions to consider, and principles to guide decisions about teaching Indigenous history. I suspect that methods employed in teaching Indigenous histories can serve as a model for teaching about the histories of all peoples in the past.

I am a historian of Indigenous peoples and French colonists on the land that came to be known as Canada, and I specialize widely in histories of Anishinaabe, Cree, and Metis. I teach courses that are specific to Indigenous histories and general early Canadian or early North American histories that happen to include a majority of material that concerns Indigenous peoples. I do not have any Indigenous heritage myself, and I recognize my past as a descendent of Ukrainian immigrants on the Canadian prairies. I have benefitted from the system of colonialism implemented by the Canadian government, which dispossessed Indigenous peoples. My grandparents farmed on Cree, Anishinaabe, and Metis lands in western Manitoba (outside of Ethelbert and Ozerna); I grew up in Selkirk, Manitoba on the site of a former Anishinaabe community, the Peguis Band, which was relocated 160 km north in 1907.[2] Today I live on Mississauga land (in the town of Oakville), and I want to recognize that York University occupies lands that were once home to Mississaugas, other Anishinaabeg, Wendats, and Eries.[3]

Why am I acknowledging my ethnic heritage and history, and why do I remark on the past owners of the lands on which I live and work? I do so for three reasons. Continue reading →

History Feature in Newest Issue of Atlantic Books Today

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By Angela Mombourquette, Editor, Atlantic Books Today

Three times a year, the Atlantic Publishers Marketing Association publishes a 48-page magazine dedicated to exploring the latest in Atlantic Canadian books. Today, we’re pleased to tell you that we’ve done something extra special with the newest issue of Atlantic Books Today.

Thanks to support from the Canada Book Fund, we’ve added a 16-page section devoted entirely to history—and to showcasing the vigorous catalogue of new history titles from Atlantic Canada and beyond. We’ve also broadened many of our existing departments in this issue to touch on history, and we’ve brought in the big guns, including several celebrated authors—like John Boileau, AJB Johnston, and Frank Macdonald—whose expertise in historical subjects extends deep—to explore how writers are approaching history from fresh, exciting perspectives.

Join us as author Jon Tattrie looks at three new works of lively, funny history, and as Nova Scotia writer Sandra Phinney brings us a profile of Mike Parker—author, outdoorsman and historian—and explores the secrets to his success. John Boileau, a retired army officer, and currently the Honorary Lieutenant-Colonel of The Halifax Rifles (RCAC) brings us “War and Peace,” a look at new works touching on military history. Multitalented Cape Breton author Frank Macdonald compares some recent works of historical fiction, and finds historical truths revealed through themes and characters, while Young Readers’ Editor Lisa Doucet explores the benefits of reading historical books for kids. We also have reviews and excerpts to entice and entertain and many more articles that explore history-themed subjects.

We invite you to read and enjoy. To go directly to the digital edition, please click here.

Video: Bidisha Ray – “Great Soul or Great Schemer? Exploring the Myth of Mahatma Gandhi”

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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 exploring some of the most popular myths surrounding the man and his work, Dr. Bidisha Ray offers in this video a fresh perspective on what Gandhi and Gandhi-isms may stand for.

Next up in SFU’s History Department’s Heroes and Villains series is “Trudeau 2.0: Pierre’s Legacy and Justin’s Future,” a roundtable discussion with Elise Chenier, Allen Seager, and Nicolas Kenny, hosted by Roxanne Panchasi. It will be held 28 November 2013, 7:00 PM. Further details here: http://www.sfu.ca/history/events/heroesandvillains/trudeau.html

The Value of Historical Maps: Solving At Least Part of the Mystery of the Origins of the Acadians

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By Gregory Kennedy

One of the principal challenges of Acadian history is that we do not have conclusive proof of the origins of the first permanent colonists.  The passenger lists, parish registers, tax records, or censuses that genealogists use for other groups and regions have not been found and may not exist.  There are a few exceptions, and as early as 1959, some experts suggested that the Loudunais, a region of western France between Poitou and Touraine, was the likely origin of the twenty or so families recruited by Charles de Menou during the 1640s.  This hypothesis was hotly contested at the time and remains the subject of debate.  I have summarized this debate elsewhere[1], but I am personally convinced that the Loudunais was the most probable place of origin of this founding group (though certainly not all of the Acadians) for a variety of reasons.  Historical maps played a crucial role in convincing me of this.  Continue reading →

A Big Fracking Deal

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By Daniel Macfarlane

The fracking process. Wikimedia Commons

The fracking process. Wikimedia Commons

The recent showdown between Native protestors and police over “fracking” in New Brunswick brought together several contentious issues that have simmering, and periodically boiling over, in Canadian society as of late (an interactive map of New Brunswick fracking can be found here). Obviously one of them, and probably the most prominent, is the Canadian state’s past and present treatment of First Nations.

But another is the use of fracking, short for hydraulic fracturing (the oil and gas industry tends to spell it without the “k” – so “fracing” or “frac’ing”). Though I don’t want to downplay the many vital Native rights issues at stake, I do want to concentrate here on the fracking aspect. In Canada, this method of energy recovery has intensified and increased in the past decade, especially the last few years. For example, Apache Corp claimed in 2011 that it had performed in northern British Columbia the largest hydraulic fracturing operation ever – and then topped it a few months later.

Fracking typically involves the pumping of massive volumes of water at high pressure in order to fracture rock, often shale, where natural gas is trapped several kilometers underground in rock formations. Chemicals are included in the mix, as is a “proppant” such as sand, which is used to keep the fracture open and allow the gas to flow to a well where it can be recovered. Fracking became a particularly effective means of accessing unconventional and previously inaccessible sources when combined with horizontal drilling – if it helps, think of The Simpsons episode where Mr. Burns used slant-drilling to steal the oil under Springfield Elementary. Continue reading →

Food for Thought

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Figure 1: Canadian Pacific Railway commemorative fruitcake, 1936. Courtesy of the Bruce Peel Special Collections Library, University of Alberta.

Figure 1: Canadian Pacific Railway commemorative fruitcake, 1936. Courtesy of the Bruce Peel Special Collections Library, University of Alberta.

By Caroline Lieffers

Last week a colleague showed me something that I found extraordinary: a round medallion, about the size of a milk cap, hanging from a long necklace chain. Set under the medallion’s plastic cover was a fragile square of loose-weave cotton, once white but now more of a cream colour, printed with a bright blue and yellow flower. To my surprise, it was a piece of a flour sack. “During the Depression,” he explained, “women would choose which flour to buy based on which brand had the prettiest sack. Then they would reuse the material for dishtowels, curtains, dresses, or whatever else they needed.” My colleague’s friend collects these vintage items and uses bits of the fabric to make jewellery.

I had heard about this resourceful apparel, of course. I knew an elderly woman who once sewed her family’s underwear from such material, and I even inherited a flour sack dress from the 1960s, when they made a kind of hippie-chic comeback. But I’ve been thinking a lot lately not about fashion history but food history, and how what we eat intersects with other aspects of our societies and our lives. This necklace was a material reminder that food is not just about biological sustenance. It is about the environmental, political, economic, ethical, social, religious, and other processes that push and pull a substance from field to table, as well as the flour sack dresses it makes along the way. In consuming food, we consume culture—and often vice-versa, too.

This is the overarching theme of two complementary exhibits set to launch on 24 October 2013 at the University of Alberta’s Bruce Peel Special Collections Library. Continue reading →

Telling Interview Stories: Understanding Oral History from the Perspective of Practice

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Anna Sheftel and Stacey Zembrzycki

Oral historians often state that, at its core, interviewing is about relationships. This generally refers to the relationships that interviewers and interviewees build and nurture over the course of their encounters, so as to create open, safe, and respectful spaces where one side can share intimate stories, and the other can listen deeply and meaningfully to them. However, there are more relationships involved in the oral history process than just this archetypical one. Others in the room—co-interviewers, a videographer, family members that come in and out of the space—interact with and complicate the dynamic. And, there are also the imagined and real audiences, for whom the stories are being told. All of these people, and the varied relationships that result, have a profound effect on what happens within an interview. Reflecting on our experiences, as these relationships both thrive and flounder, can therefore only help us better understand the stories that they produce and the ways we interpret them later. Continue reading →