T
he
B
est
B
ook
in 80
years
?
As part of the CHA’s ongoing célébration ofits 80th birthday, the editors ofthe Bulletin invited ahandful ofhistorians to weigh in on the mighty question of the best bookwritten by a Canadian historian in the past 80 years. Theanswers areas diverse asthey are fascinating. Imust confess thatthis exercise gotme thinkingaboutthe book I would choose. And I found myself coming up with various shortlistsbut never with a clear winner.Then it came tome. Itwasnot a book. It was an article. Actually, it was a convocation address by Harold Innis. I can picture the UNB class of 1950 sitting in their chairs, wearing theirgowns and caps,and listeningto Innis. Insteadof a “good
luck” talk, they were presented with a complex discussion of space,time, and empire. No doubt most tuned out. But those who listened were treated to a brilliant critique of modernity and its neglect of time. I assign it tomy first-yearstudents in Canadian Studies. They don’t alwaysget it. But those who do strugglethrough Innis’s wooden, awkward prose fmd them-selvesat a new understanding oftheirculture, ofMTV and CNN. Innis didn’tsayit, but hecertainly impliedit.We live in a culture of speed. Andeverytime I readthispiece, entitled “A Plea For Time,” I am struck bywhat a prophetInnis was.In anyevent, I hope you enjoy the following articles.
L
e
meilleur
livre
des
80
dernières
années
?
Toujours dans le cadre descélébrations entourant le 80eanniversaire de la S.H.C.,les rédacteursdu Bulletin ont demandé à quelques historiens de choisirchacun lemeilleur livre écrit par un historiencanadien au cours des 80 dernières années. Le choix était ardu, ilfaut en convenir,mais les fascinantes et diverses propositions que nous avons reçues ont étéà la hauteur du défi. Je dois admettre que je me suis moi-mêmeplié à l’exercice;s’ilm’a été relativement facile de dresser de courtes listes de mes ouvragespréférés, j’ai toutefois eu beaucoup de peine à préciser laquelle de cespublications me semblait la plusdéterminante.Et puistout àcoup, un texte s’est clairement imposé :ilnes’agissait pas d’unlivre, mais plutôt d’un article. Plus exactement, c’était undiscours prononcé par Harold Innis àl’occasion d’une cérémonie de remise de diplômes. Je m’imagine les finissants del’Universityof New Brunswick en 1950, portanttogeet mortier, écoutant Innis.
Mais aulieu du traditionnel discours de« bonne chance », l’orateurleur servit un exposé complexe sur l’espace, le temps et l’empire. Une grande partie del’auditoire s’estprobablement ennuyée, mais ceux qui ont prêté attention à sespropos ont eu droit à unebrillante critique sur la modernité etson insouciance dutemps. J’ai donné cetexte à lire à mes étudiants de 1ère année en études canadiennes. Ils n’ont pas toujoursbien saisi le sens de la pensée d’Innis, mais ceuxquiontpersévéréet ont percéson style aride et rébarbatifont découvertunenouvelle façond’appréhenderleur culture, celle de MTV et de CNN. Innis ne l’a bien sûr pas dit exactement en ces termes, maisson raisonnement nous y mène.Nous vivons dans uneculture de la vitesse, et chaque fois que je relis « APlea For Time »,je suis frappé parles propos prophétiques d’Innis. Voilà, je vous ai fait part demonchoix; j’espère que vous aurez plaisirà lireles articlessuivants.
John
E.
Crowley,
Dalhousie University
When my colleague/editor asked ifI would writeanote about the“best[history]book written in Canadainthepast eighty years,” I had to confessthatI had not read ail of the books writtenin Canada in that period, soit was likely that thebest book was one I had not read. Iasked if I could insteadsay a fewwords abouta book that has had a long andstronginflu ence on me, C.B.MacPherson’s The Political Theory of Possessive Individualisai: Hobbes to Locke (1962), andshe said “Fine.” MacPherson’s was the first book I read in graduate school, in JackGreene’s seminarat the Universityof Michigan in 1965.
Besides the promised Hobbes and Locke, thebookalsohad chapterson the Levellers and James Harrington. I had read Hobbes and Lockeinpolitics classesin highschool and college, where westudiedthem fortheir théories ofhuman nature and naturalrights, and youcould hardly study history at Princeton in the early 1960s without taking a classfrom Lawrence Stone on the English Révolution [sic], andthatmeant hearing a lot about the démocratieLevellers.But who was James Harrington, besides a passingillustration of political zaniness during the Commonwealth and Protectorate? According to MacPherson, Harrington’s writings contained themostsophisticatedanalysis of thechangestaking place in English politicsas a conséquence of the commercializationof English social relations and their crucial resource,land. Theimplicitbeliefthat political partici pation dependedon theownership ofproperty gave joint cohérence to theviews of Hobbes, the Levellers, Harrington, andLocke.
Serendipitously, my veryfirst issue of the WilliamandMary
Quarterly arrived just then (October 1965), with an article by J. G. A. Pocock, “Machiavelli,Harrington,andEnglishPolitical
Idéologies in the Eighteenth Century.” In it one learned that "Harrington’s économies and his politics werealikeessentially, andthat ail heknew about English agrarian society wasatthe service of a fundamentallyAristotelian theoryof citizenship" (p. 595). Greene had set usdown in a historiographie minefield that has still not been cleared:how importantwere market relations in earlymodemAnglo-American society, and did they matter in itspolitics? (At the time I neglectedto note that Pocockactuallyconceded that MacPhersonwas right on a number of points that questioned Pocock’s earlier interpréta tions ofHarrington — aunique instance, so far as I am aware, of Pocock’s acceptingsomeone else’s criticism.)
Notice thatPocock’stitle usedthe term "political idéologies," whileMacPherson referred to "politicaltheory." In the 1960s understanding "ideology" becamethe main reasonthat historians read past politicalwritings: ideology affected action. Historians were proudly too relativistictocare about the truth of political theory. Notcoincidentally, BernardBailyn’sextraordinarily influ- entialIdeological Origins of the AmericanRévolution wasalso published in 1965, having initially appeared with the 60s title “The TransformingRadicalism of the American Révolution,” as the introduction to his édition of Pamphlets of theAmerican Révolution. Bailyn hadfoundthat understandingHobbes and Locke hardly mattered in analyzing eighteenth-century Anglo-American political culture. The lessname récognition, the more crucial the idéologues. JamesTrenchard and Thomas Gordon becamehousehold words as the authors of Cato ’j* Letters — in graduate student households,anyway. PossessiveIndividualism beganto wane from historical footnotes.
The Canadian Encyclopedia andthe Canadian-edited Global
Encyclopedia of Historical Writing refer to MacPherson as “Marxist,” but he was actually pluralistic in his theory.He appealedto Max Weber and Werner Sombart, as wellas Karl Marx, as authorities on the relation of market relations to capitalism, but he wasagnosticabouthe processes involved. He pointed out that hisanalysis “differs from theirs chiefly in that it does not require any particular theory of theoriginor development ofsuch society” (p. 48). MacPherson had a worthwhile method ratherthan a theory: he readverycarefully. He looked for the anomaliesin a political theory toseewhether the crucialargumentlay implicitly initsfallacies: that Hobbes the psychological materialistderived hisanalysis of humans’ natural competitivenessfrom theirbehavior in civilizedsociety; that the démocratie Levellers woulddeny the franchiseto servantsand alms-takers;that Harrington, the defender of gentry privilège ingovernment, based the legitimacy oftheir rule on the argument the gentryhad the same commercial attitudes toward propertyas peoplein non-landed families; that Locke argued fora natural right to propertyand then explained howthe invention of money justified unlimited accumulation in excessofnatural needs.In each analysis, political liberty depended, noton natural rights, but onthe possessionof property,a historicalcircumstance requiringextensive market relations.
MacPherson was deeply respectful of libertal-democratic institu tions, so iftheydepended on a possessive market society, then he was wary of radical alternatives to it. But he wasdistressed by
the amoral individualism thatfit so easilyasan assumption for that society.With this conflictin mind, he titled hislast chapter “TheTwentieth-CenturyDilemma.” Had heanticipated theera of the Third Way, he could hâvepushed his chronology further. How does one détermine “the best book written by ahistorian in Canadainthe past80 years?” Does one includebooks in ail fields or onlyin Canadian history? How doesone define “best”? Even limitingthe field to books about Canada written in English, there are hundreds of contenders. Given that history is aneclectic discipline,it can be argued that works by economists such asH.A.Innis, sociologists suchas John Porter, anthropolo-gists such as Marius Barbeau, politicalscientists such as R.M. Dawson,geographerssuch as GriffithTaylor, and philosophers such asGeorge Grant hâvestronglyinfluenced andreflected Canadian historiography.
Pat Roy,
University
of Victoria
What is “best?” It is notsimply a “best seller” though that is not a cause of disqualification. Does one honour a workwhose ideas informeda génération of more of historians? A major candidate would hâve tobe H.A.Innis study of The Fur Trade
butwhile severalgénérations ofCanadian historians were familiarwith his ideas, onlythe most diligent can honestly say thatthey read them first hand. As a counterweight,to the Laurentian thesis that evolvedffom Innis’s writingsone could commend booksthat made provincialhistory professionally respectable such as those by W.S. MacNutt, W.L.Morton and Margaret Ormsby.In the lastquarter century or so, there has been an explosion offine workin socialhistory —in the history of women, of gender studies, ofFirstNations and ethnie groups. Itis, however, too earlyto assesstheir longterm impact, meritorious andinnovative asmanyof themare. I propose tonominate as the “best history book,” one thatwas grounded in soundscholarship, influenced professional historians and Canadians as a whole,cameclose to being anational history though ignoringNewfoundland (notthena part ofCanada) and the Territories (whichsadly seem beyond the purview of most historians), and reflecteda collaborativeendeavour.Moreover, thesevolumes werereprinted at least onceaquarter century or more after theiroriginal publication.The nominee isthe first volumeoftheReportof the Royal Commissionon Dominion-ProvincialRelationsorRowell-Sirois Commission published in
1940 and its supportingcast ofhistoricalstudies.
TheReport’sfirst volume isabrief but stillsound économie and constitutional history of Canada from the 1850s to the 1930s. Inintroducing a 1963 abridgement ofit, Donald Smiley called it “a landmark in the study of governmental institutions in Canada.” Despite Premiers Aberhart, HepburnandPattullo, and the changed circumstancesbrought about by war, the fédéral government eventually implemented many of theCommission’s suggestions in an effort tocreate greater equalityfor Canadians no matter where theylived.
Several supporting volumesare still minorclassics and, likethe first volume,still merit being read. Creighton’s study of British
North Americanat Confédération which appeared shortlyafter his
Empireof the St. Lawrence and well before hisbiography of
JohnA. Macdonaldclearly articulâtesthe Laurentianthesis, a concept which long influenced the writingof Canadian history. While later scalars hâve explored the comingof Confédération in greater depth, looked at itfrom other angles, andshown that it was not universally acclaimed, British NorthAmerican at
Confédération is still a fine description of the circumstances surrounding Confédération. No one who wishes to understand how Confédération came about can ignore it. Whereas
Creighton dealt only with the Confédération era, S.A. Saunders extended hisEconomie History of the Maritime Provinces wellinto the 1930s. As T.W.Achesonnoted inan introduction to a 1984 reprint, it becamea “comerstone” ofthe région’s historiography. W.A.MacKintosh’s examination of The EconomieBackground of
Dominion-Provincial Relations also surveys the broadsweep
of Canadian économiehistory fromthe 1850sto the 1930s and pays particular attentionto the régionalimpactof tariff, transportation andmonetary policies.
Writingin 1963, J.H. Dales suggested, “the postwargénération ofsocialscientists in Canadahâve so far failed toproduce a por trait of their âge, and the resuit is a pervading sense of perplexi-ty among Canadians aboutwhere they stand,economically and politically.”Almost fortyyears later, thatargument can still be made.The Rowell- Sirois scholars gaveCanada asemblance of a national history. Surely most historians wouldagrééthat is a worthymeasure of what is best.
Mélanie
Brunet,
étudiante
au
doctorat,
département
d
’
histoire,
Université
de
Toronto
Lorsqu’on m’a demandéquelétait selon moi lemeilleur livre écrit par un historien ouunehistorienne au Canada au cours des 80 dernièresannées,un titre me semblait s’imposer : The
Gender ofBreadïvinners: Women, Men and Change in Tivo
Industrial Torons, 1880-1950 de Joy Parr (University of Toronto
Press, 1990). Celivre ne constitue peut-être pas un choix original : après tout, les membres de la profession historique au Canadasemblent en être arrivésàun consensusquantà sa contribution à la recherche. Il suffit en ce sens de rappelerles nombreux prix et honneurs qui lui furent attribués, dontle Prix sirJohn A. Macdonald en 1991 etla Médaille François-Xavier Garneauen 1995.Cependant, d’unpoint de vue plus personnel, l’ouvrage de Joy Parr,par son sujet,les thèmes qu’il aborde et la méthodologie adoptée, a plusquetout autre marqué majeune carrièrede chercheure.
Lors d’un cours universitaire en histoire du « genre »(«gender history »), on nous avait ditqu’il s’agissait d’un « classique ». Je tentais alors de comprendre la différence entre ce type
d’histoire et l’histoire des femmes. Je me souviens d’avoirété surtout impressionnée par la perspectivethéorique nouvellede Parr. L’histoire semblait pouvoirs’élaborer autourde sources et de méthodes empruntées à l’anthropologie. En effet, Parrne s’estpascontentée defouiller les archives descompagnies Penmanet Knechtel, et defaire des entrevues auprès d’employé(e)s àla retraite: ellea également déménagé ses pénates à Hanover età Paris pourtravailler aux côtés des employé(e)sdes deux usines, questiondese familiariseravec
I les processusdetravail. J’avais devant moi la preuve que la recherche pouvait être à la fois rigoureuse et engagée. C’est aussi grâce à ce livre quej’ai compris le potentiel d’une analyse du « genre » non seulement appliquéeà l’étude des femmes, mais également àcelle des hommes, donnant à ces derniers un « genre » qu’ils ont toujourseu, mais qui était passéinaperçu. Cette constatation n’arien d’extraordinaire maintenant, mais lorsque le livre de Joy Parr fut publié en 1990, cetypede conclusion n’allait pas desoi.
DansThe Gender ofBreadroinners, Parr examinele quotidien et
letravail de lamain-d’œuvre féminine des usines de textile de la compagnie Penman àPariset l’expériencedes hommes travaillant dans l’usine de meubles de Knechtel à Hanover. Pour
chaque ville, elle analyse les processus de recrutementetde travail en tenant compte de l’appartenance ethniquedes travailleurs et des travailleuses, la division sexuelle du travail au foyer et à l’usine, les valeurs familialeset communautaires, et l’organisation syndicale. Fondantson interprétation sur un modèlenéo-marxiste,Parr metl’accent sur le rôle de l’économiedans la formation de communautés, mais elle s’inspire aussi de perspectives féministes pourdémontrer que le « genre »est égalementun facteur déterminant. Elle analyse lesstructures de l’industrie pour savoir commentelles ont façonné la composition dela main-d’œuvre pourensuite influencer lesrelationsautravail, à lamaison et dans la communauté. Dansle cas de Paris,elle montre comment l’industrialisation a affecté la structure du foyer au point de forcerunemodification desrôles sexuels traditionnels.Pour Joy Parr, il est clair que l’appartenance àuneclasseet à unsexe
se construitet sevit simultanémentetneconstitue que deux des multiples dimensions d’une expériencepartagée.
TheGender of Breadroinners constitue unbel exemple d’histoire
de laclasseouvrière qui intègre bien les perspectives féministes pour en arriverà une vision du changement industriel comme étant une interaction entre le patriarcat et le capitalisme. Ce livre fournitunschéma d’analyses tenantcompte du « genre», de la classe etde l’ethnie pour réinterpréterle processus d’industrialisation au Canada. Il offre également unmodèle d’histoireorale : Parr porteuneattentionparticulière au langage utilisé par lesgensdela communautéainsiqu’à leur propre interprétation de leur expérience en tant qu’hommes et femmes. Bien entendu, cet ouvragenerépondpas à toutes les questions. J’aurais aiméen savoirdavantage sur les hommes de Paris etles femmesde Hanover, sur lestravailleurs et les travailleusesqui ne travaillaient pas chez Penman ou Knechtel, mais celan’altère en rien l’importancede cetouvrage qui sort des sentiersbattus.
Ce qui rend ce livre si exceptionnel n’est pas seulement la découverted’une communauté de femmesdéfiant lesnotions traditionnelles de féminité en étant le principal soutien familial, maisaussi son analyse du «genre »appliquée à l’expérience masculine et sa remise en questiond’uneséparation nette entre les sphères privée (lefoyer) et publique(le lieu de travail). Cetteétude nous rappelle queles notions deféminité et de masculinité sont desconstructions sociales etnondes vérités biologiqueset qu’en ce sens,elles varient selon le lieu et la période.
Depuis ma première lecture de The Gender of Breadwinners,je n’ai pas pourautantdélaissé l’histoire des femmes, mais je suis maintenant plus sensible à la construction des notions de masculinité et aux variations selon la classe et l’ethnie.C’est l’étude de cettecomplexité sociale que je désire poursuivre dans ma recherchesur la formation del’identité professionnelle des étudiants etdesétudiantes endroit au Canada, ce qui me donnera l’occasion de feuilleterce livre plusieurs fois encore.
Michael
Driedger,
Brock
University
Instead of singlingout onebook, I wouldlike to draw attention to theannual Massey Lectures, begun in 1961.In recommending this sériés, I amaware that it is not meant strictlyand especially for professionalhistorians.Nonetheless, I believe there are good reasons for us professionals to paythe sériés close attention.
But first, for those unfortunatefew not yetor insufficiently exposed to theMassey Lectures, abrief pinch of background is in order.Broadcast nation-wide each year on the CBCandnow usually made available in print through the House of Anansi Press inToronto, the lecturesériés is aninstitution which has made anenormous contribution to the Canadianworld of learning. Its goal is “to enabledistinguished authorities to communicate the results oforiginalstudy orresearch on subjectsofcontemporary interest.” Toprovidea senseof the profile ofthe invitedspeakers, Ineedonlyhighlight a small numberof thosewhohâve given the lectures: Noam Chomsky, Northrop Frye, Carlos Fuentes, J.K. Galbraith, Martin Luther King, Jr., R.D. Laing, Doris Lessing, Claude Lévi-Strauss. And, asthesimpleyet ambitious mandate suggests, the areas of learning, reflection and debatethatthe lectures hâve addressed is broad, ranging acrossthe fields of économie and social policy, political rights,psychology, literature, and science and technology. Because of the broad mandate,lectures are very often trans-disciplinary, refusingto be categorized easily according to institutionalized academie boundaries. The first lecture from 1961 by Barbara Ward can serve as an illustration.In her talk, Ward spoke ofthe conséquencesof fourrévolutions that hâve shaped themodemworld: firstand second, the rise of ideas ofequalityand material progress; third, rapid biological or démographie change; and, fourth, the triumph of rationally administered technology and capital inail aspectsof life. She then showedhoweach of these world-historicaldevelopments is implicated in the divide between prosperous, powerful nations
of the northernhemisphereandthepoverty-stricken, weak nations of thesouthem hemisphere. The text of Ward’s lecture, The Rich Nations and the Poor Nations (1962), is clearly dated by its ColdWar concerns.Yet despi te the changed political circumstances, an approach similar toherstypifies many subséquent lectures.
Example 1:In the ninth Massey Lecture, Time as History (1969), George Grant writes about the intellectualsourcesofmodem westernsociety's driveto control the future throughtechnical procedures and prédictions. Arguingthat Friedrich Nietzsche is perhaps the mostprofound philosopher ofthis modem orienta tion toward future time, Grant devotes much ofhis lectures to an explicationof Nietzsche'ssignificance. To concludehis thoughts,he asks his audience to remember the importance of tradition,rootedness, andstillness that toooften inour modem worldseem unattractive in the face ofcalls for innovation, freedom,and progress.
Example 2: Richard Lewontin's lectures on Biology as Ideology:
The Doctrine ofDNA (1991)aim at laying bare whatthe Harvard
geneticist calls “the ideology of biological determinism”, a System of thought and assumption withatradition reaching backseveral centuries which today isbuttressedbymodem institutionsand codifiedin textbooks. Although scienceis a powerful approach to acquiring knowledge, it is still a social enterprise, Lewontin argues.To learnfrom it wisely and responsibly,we hâve to understand howthe assumptions that underpin it helpchannelresources, research, health care and publicpolicy.He concludes withthe messagethat we should not acceptthe idea that our actions, behaviours and the fate of our environments are predetermined bygenetics. The great mystery of ourgenes is that they arethe foundations of a complexsocial world that cannot be reduced toa simple functionof genetic codes and impératives.
Grant, Lewontin and Ward each handle very differentsubjects, yeteach shows a strong awareness of the connectionbetween the past andthe présent, andbetween multiple branches of learningand action. Put inaphrase,a project that theseand manyother lecturersshare is to make explicit how we and our worldhâvebeenand are being shaped inmajor waysby forces that reach back well beyond our lifetimes. Or, put yet another waywithout meaning to use a phrase exclusivelyin the sense of Michel Foucault, these and other lecturers are contributing to an archeology of modem knowledge, routines, institutions. Like anyapproachtoknowledge, thisarcheological one can be done well or poorly. Its great advantagewhen done well isthatthe
significance of its broad insights are easier to communicate to educated members of the generalpublicthanare specialist stud ies, because thearcheological approach tends itself toanalyzing big subjects thataffect many people.
Whether or notwe agrééwiththe spécifie arguments or styles of argument that Masseylecturers use,it is ultimately their concernforcommunicating big ideas which we professional historians should use as inspiration. The lecturesareamodel for scholars whowant tobe relevant withoutselling outto corporateideals ofthe “utility” oflearning. Ail Massey lecturers, nomatter howcomplex thesubjects handled, présent weighty materialin plain, accessible language.Thelecturersare
frequently experts,but theyhâve not lost the desire and ability to movebeyondthe narrow territory definedby professional fieldsof learning, andtoexplain to largenumbersof people whyideasmatter andare worth considering seriously,even
though those ideasmight not beusefulor even popular in a conventional sense.To liveup to this idéalour own présenta tions and essays don’thâve to reach millionsof people, nor deal with life, the universe and everything. We don't hâvetogiveup publishingin specialist journals andsmall academie presses. But let's be inspired as frequently as possible by these lecturers to pitch our work at non-specialist audiences and to strive to connectour specialist studieswith“the bigpicture.” For moreon theMassey Lectures, visit the followingtwo websites:masseylectures.cbc.ca; and
