Glasstry news

Friends of this blog in Toronto may want to know about the Yorkminster Park Speakers Series , which covers a wide range of topics, but includes a significant number of historians most seasons, including Jack Granatstein later this week, Randall Hansen in February, and Patrice Dutil in March. Update, same day :  Speaking of historians speaking in Toronto: the Beth Tzedec Synagogue presents Allan Levine November 13 . Allan will be launching  Seeking the Fabled City: The Canadian Jewish Experience .  From the McClelland & Stewart website: Seeking the Fabled City is a story that unfolds over 250 years--from the decade after the conquest of New France in 1759, when small numbers of Sephardic Jews of Spanish and Portuguese descent arrived in British North America, through the great wave of Russian and Eastern European Jewish immigration at the turn of the twentieth century, to the present....

John Warkentin Went down to the annual meeting of the Champlain Society the other day, always a gathering of the tribe for Torontonians interested in published Canadiana. The Society  discovered in recent decades that its century-old model -- members pay a hundred bucks a year, get a handsomely published book of carefully edited Canadian documents on a chosen subject, and thereby subsidize the dissemination of accessible documentary knowledge  -- just was not working anymore.  Library building among Canadians is not such a big thing anymore, 'tseems.  Proof: plunging membership, plunging revenue, looming collapse. That was a decade ago. This AGM demonstrated that the Society has successfully been re-orienting itself away from dependency on membership dues and into other sources of revenue, along with other vehicles for disseminating historical knowledge. One of those new vehicles is the Society's very active and ambitious podcast Witness to Yesterday .  Listener...

Canadian Delegates in London, 1867: yeah, still these guys As someone who takes an interest in 19th century political history despite its unfashionable standing, I was happy to see a major article on that most traditional topic, the making of the British North America Act, 1867, in the recent issue of the  Canadian Historical Review : " The Silent Framers of British North American Union: The Colonial Office and Canadian Confederation, 1851�67 " by Ben Gilding. It's Gilding's thesis here that historians -- Christopher Moore listed prominently among them -- have downplayed the role of the British Colonial Office and "generally favoured a distinctly 'made-in-Canada' perspective on the Confederation story." I cheerfully assent to that characterization. It still seems to me incontrovertible that the British government nicely summed up who was in the driver's seat in 1864 when it accepted the Quebec Resolutions, made without its participation or forekn...

In the wake of a dispiriting Toronto municipal election, it's bitter-sweet to read Dusty Bookcase 's exploration of a 1967 book that projected what Toronto could be in 2067 . This would be a city of skyscrapers measuring up to a mile in height, many built on artificial islands formed by dumping landfill into Lake Ontario. Each of these buildings would be self-contained communities, McLorg called for covering 145-square miles of Toronto with 2300 transparent fibreglass and plastic cupolas. These would be held aloft by internal air pressure, and tethered to the ground by hollow cables that would drain off rainwater and melted snow [Torontonians] will be able to grow oranges in their back gardens, watch roses bloom in December and cherry trees blossom in February; when they can play golf and tennis all winter, count on the same fifteen minutes to get to the office in January that it takes in July, buy a topless convertible for their wives, laugh when the heating bill arrives, and ...

In a world where the very worst people pose as defenders of "Judeo-Christian" civilization, priests have always raped children with impunity, Buddhists slaughter Rohingya women and children, every Evangelical Christian pastor seems to be in bed with Donald Trump, and endless violence in the Middle East seems to get much of its sanction from religious affilation  (I could go on), I was struck by the article " What's a Muslim to do about Hajj? " in Slate magazine online. I�ve always dreamed of converging with fellow Muslims on the location believed to be the birthplace of our final prophet, and where the first words of the Quran were revealed: Iqra . Read. Now I�m starting to wonder how I can go at all. And I�m also wondering why more Muslims don�t question the powers that control our most sacred site�and how the Saudis have already twisted it to their own political and financial ends. ...To participate in one of our religion�s most important rites, we shouldn�t ...

Maybe it was a mistake to dispose of all my hard copy editions I recently got a message urging me to "check out the Canadian Encyclopedia 's new look."  Well, I did, but I'm not in love with the new look. The Encyclopedia 's home screen used to feature, front and centre, a very large Search box. The concept resembled that of the internet's dominant site, Google, which long has featured an almost wordless screen (okay, plus the Google doodle) with a large, dominating "Search" box at centre. I have used the Canadian Encyclopedia --  with the similar Search feature it used to have, regularly. I find the CE  can often enough take a reader to Canadian materials not readily available elsewhere. Now the Encyclopedia 's "Search" option has been reduced to a small-print item in an upper corner of the home screen.  Most of the screen is now given over to newsy stories about topics the editors think you should read about. No doubt some consultant ...

Props to Borealia for hosting a debate, still ongoing, about the meaning or even the existence of a "seigneurial system" in New France -- because lively debate about anything in early Canadian history always seems all too scarce and rare. Allan Greer, who thrives on controversy (in the best way!) launched the exchange with his essay "There was no Seigneurial System" in late September, and various parties have been responding with Borealia posts since, including Greer. But I fear this is a debate with almost no there there.  Greer now clarifies my piece was aimed primarily at a certain version of the history of New France found in textbooks, reference works and heritage sites. This is the idealized story of a �seigneurial system,� unique to French Canada and featuring seigneurs and censitaires living in harmony, each with their respective duties and benefits. I was really speaking to an anglophone phenomenon, an interpretation that is consistent with a long tradit...

Nice to see a forthcoming article in Ontario History getting front page coverage in national newspapers.  Toronto map researcher Rick Laprairie identified the words "Lac Torontos" on  a 1678 map by Quebec-based mapmaker Jean-Louis Franquelin John Steckley, the dean of all things Iroquoian in 17th century southern Ontario, seems to have taken note of Franquelin's use of the term fifteen years ago .  But Laprairie, whose article surveys the origins of the name Toronto, apparently makes a pretty good case this is the earliest known use of the root of "Toronto" on a European map.  Map is here; wording not visible at this magnification. The label is on a lake that is pretty clearly today's Lake Simcoe. It's further evidence that the place now called Toronto was then the entrance to the Toronto portage, which led to the 17th century Tkaranto, a site located near today's Orillia. The word is Iroquoian and refers to the fish weirs there: something like ...

Well, there's Premier Curly in Ontario and Premier Legault in Quebec and Christy Clark, who used to be somebody in British Columbia. Now there is  progressive legal scholar Christopher Sprigman in the USA, who thinks the way for future Democratic Congresses to overcome decades of Republican courtpacking is to adopt an Canadian notwithstanding clause to allow Congress to ignore Supreme Court decisions. Sprigman doesn't seem to know the Canadian notwithstanding clause only applies to a limited range of matters covered in Section 2 and 7 to 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, not the main body of the constitution. But he argues that no constitutional amendment would be required to create an broad American override, only a majority resolution of Congress. We could have the equivalent of a Notwithstanding Clause in the United States. And we wouldn�t have to amend the U.S. Constitution to get it. How could that be done? Congress could pass a law stating that Congress may overr...

I must say that when I saw Maclean's was going to publish a Remembrance Day issue with 66,349 different covers, each one with the name of an identified individual Canadian casualty of the First World War, my first reaction was surprise:  does Maclean's still sell 66,000 individual hard copies of any issue?  I can't remember the last time I have seen one. But since it evidently does, I'd say its a commendable contribution to the closing of the First World War centenary.  And since I do see Maclean's online, let me also give a shout-out to Jack Granatstein, who has been contributing since the late summer a relentless series of articles detailing the grim and bloody battles that constituted the Hundred Days campaign culminating in the Armistice.  Canadian troops made their greatest advances of the war during the Hundred Days -- and suffered 25% of all their casualties suffered during nearly four years in action.  Say this for Jack G:  he delivers.

Sometimes the old world seems not so far away.  CBC Radio reports on a group of Manitoba Mennonites who took a river cruise to the Ukrainian territories their grandparents emigrated from -- and found themselves gaining access to the KGB reports from the 1930s that documented the arrests, interrogations, probable torture, and executions of forebears whose travails provoked the flight of the survivors to, eventually, Manitoba. "The interrogator kept asking about his counter-revolutionary activities, but my grandfather kept insisting that after his stint in the White Army, he had not been involved in any,� Braun said. �The interrogator responded that they had information that he had been. My grandfather requested the names of his accusers. That statement was not recognized. "After each entry, my grandfather had to add his signature." Braun�s grandfather was questioned again on Feb. 28, 1938. "'You insist on hiding facts from interrogators. Tell the truth,'...

I once read a review of James McPherson's history of the American Civil War, Battle Cry of Freedom.  It argued that after a century and a half, McPherson had finally provided a one-volume history of the Civil War that was comprehensive, authoritative, dispassionate, and above parti-pris side-taking. On the strength of the review, I bought and read Battle Cry of Freedom , and while Civil War history writing has hardly come to a full stop (!), it does make a pretty impressive survey and useful reference. Maybe the world need a little more time to get to the same place with regard to the First World War.  I'm often impressed with Canadian accounts of the war that stress the vital contribution of the Canadian army to the Allied victory, when I'm aware that, say, British histories seem able to cover the same territory with only the barest mentions of a Canadian presence. Seems the Americans have the same "it's about us, why don't they admit it?" attitude, judg...

In a funny and furious twitter-storm republished by History News Network , American historian Kevin Gannon explains that they can be impeached, and even have been. While it was a long time ago, it might again be possible. HNN often has too much of historical takes on contemporary politics and too little of history in general, but sometimes it comes through for us.

More memoir than history on the shortlist for the 2018 Governor-General's Award in nonfiction, an intriguing list released this morning, including a couple of books and authors I have heard some buzz about and some unknown to me. The Cundillians Getting more historical, the Cundill Prize, the Montreal based $75,000 prize for the world's best history book, recently released its longlist of nominated titles.  A shortlist of three will appear at the end of October, and a winner in November. Meanwhile, here are the first-round Cundill contenders , and gee, this year, I have actually read one in advance and on my own initiative.

In what seems a thin season for trade market Canadian history, an exception:  Douglas Hunter's Beardmore: The Viking Hoax that Rewrote History . Beardmore is a northwestern Ontario community near Lake Nipigon, north of Lake Superior. Doug Hunter's story is of the "discovery" of Norse artifacts there in 1936, the endorsing of the find by the Royal Ontario Museum, and why their inevitable debunking was delayed until the 1950s With many of the big foreign-owned trade publishers showing reduced interest in Canadian nonfiction, Hunter's Beardmore is coming from an academic press, McGill Queen's University Press. Also in McGill-Queen's fall history lineup:: Greg Albo and Bryan Evans, eds., Divided Province , on Ontario politics since the 1990s Monique Begin, Ladies, Upstairs , her memoir of political life and sexism in federal politics. Jennifer J. Connor and Katherine Side, The Grenfell Medical Mission and American Support in Newfoundland and Labrador, 1890s-1...

MP Alleslev crosses the floor: "getting a new boss"? So British Columbia last year produced a minority government in which a minor party gained a notable degree of power. Recently the New Brunswick election produced a situation where minor parties are negotiating for influence. And while Quebec did not by a long shot produce a minority parliament last night, it clearly does have a mature four-party system for the time being. Apart from the usual appalling responses from politicians eager to mislead voters about the nature of parliamentary democracy  ("I have a mandate!"), and too often from journalists who don't seem to know any better, there has been some interesting speculation on why Canada seeing an upsurge of minor parties in a system that seems to favour two-party dynamics. Andrew Coyne thinks it's all another argument for proportional representation -- it was nice to see and hear the scepticism from Chantal H�bert on the "At Issue" panel.  ...

A friend of this blog sends a research query: Do you know anyone who has been or is studying John Strachan? I have a question about Strachan and a possible visit by him to Rebellion prisoners in 1838. If you fit the description or know something about possible answers to the question, I will be glad to put you in touch. See my email at right. Lount & Matthews hanged; Durand perhaps looking through the bars Update, October 3, 2018   Charles Levi, historian and Archives of Ontario archivist, has an answer for the query, which came from Chris Raible, author of Muddy York Mud and other studies of early 19th century Upper Canada. Levi: I tracked down the original reference, in the heretofore unknown to me "Reminiscences of Charles Durand", page 325. Durand lists Strachan as one of the visitors to the prisoners (including Durand) in the winter of 1838, and Durand was quite familiar with Strachan and could not have mistaken him for anyone else. Happily, Durand's Reminiscen...

So who was surprised that a Nafta agreement was eventually reached? And since no deal was repeatedly declared to be better than a bad deal, it must by definition be a good deal. I was reminded of the observation  made when the Canada-US trade agreement was first reached: that it was not so much a bad deal as a framework for an endless series of bad deals.  We get a promise of prosperity by hitching our economy to the Americans'. Then, as our dependency on the American market grows, the deal becomes more essential, the difficulty of getting the US to comply with the rules grows, and the price to be paid for our market access more expensive. I wasn't expecting a failure in this negotiation, but I might not have regretted it much. For all the talk of tariffs these days, tariffs between the US and Canada were not large even when the first deals were negotiated.  The issue was always what are called "non-tariff barriers."  And non tariff barriers usually means: government...

Julie Payette, the newish Governor General of Canada, is being criticized for not being active enough in her role and for withholding her patronage from events and honours traditionally associated with her office.  One such award program is the Governor General's History Awards and the Awards for Excellence in Teaching History. Merna Forster of heroines.ca weighs in on a historical honour usually conferred by (and usually at) Rideau Hall: I had the honour of receiving the 2016 Governor General's History Award for Popular Media (Pierre Berton Award) from David Johnston at Rideau Hall .I was dismayed to learn that Governor General Payette has decided that she will not present the awards for the 2018 Governor General's History Awards, nor will she permit the ceremony to be held at Rideau Hall. I believe these awards provide important recognition to exemplary history teachers, historians and community groups who strive for excellence in the field of history. Surely they should...