The Hero and the Historians
Historiography and the Uses of Jacques Cartier
Will be published approx. on 15. February 2010
Book
Hardback
248 pages
978-0-7748-1741-7 (ISBN)
Description
Historians have long engaged in passionate debate about collective memory and the building of national identities. This book focuses on one national hero - Jacques Cartier - to explore how notions about the past have been created and passed on through the generations and used to present particular ideas about the world in English- and French-speaking Canada.
The cult of celebrity surrounding Cartier by the mid-nineteenth century, Gordon reveals, reflected a particular understanding of history, one which accompanied the arrival of modernity in North America. This new sensibility, in turn, shaped the political and cultural currents of nation building in Canada. Cartier may have been a point of contact between English and French Canadian nationalism, but the nature of that contact, as Gordon shows, had profound limitations. The Hero and the Historians is necessary reading for anyone interested in the underlying culture of national identity - and national unity - in Canada.
The cult of celebrity surrounding Cartier by the mid-nineteenth century, Gordon reveals, reflected a particular understanding of history, one which accompanied the arrival of modernity in North America. This new sensibility, in turn, shaped the political and cultural currents of nation building in Canada. Cartier may have been a point of contact between English and French Canadian nationalism, but the nature of that contact, as Gordon shows, had profound limitations. The Hero and the Historians is necessary reading for anyone interested in the underlying culture of national identity - and national unity - in Canada.
Reviews / Votes
Gordon has succeeded in offering a very astute and nuanced empirical study that situates history writing in its larger social and political contexts.- Daryl Leroux, University of Ottawa (H-Canada) L'analyse des sources visuelles concernant les sports et la culture associative de Montreal que presente Poulter ouvre une nouvelle perspective sur le role identitaire des elites anglo-montrealaises dans la seconde moitie du XIXe siecle ... Son analyse detaillee et equilibree integre avec succes des sources visuelles et textuelles. Le sujet est developpe de maniere logique et claire, et l'auteur fait montre de rigueur. Il s'agit la d'une importante contribution a l'historiographie concernant le discours identitaire au Canada, qui elargit ce champ d'etude au-dela de la division souvent trop rigide posee entre le Quebec et le reste du pays.
- Gillian I. Leitch, CDCI Research Inc. (Mens) This book will greatly interest those who wish to better understand the historiographic traditions of nineteenth and twentieth century Canada, particularly Quebec. - Peter E. Pope, Memorial University (Journal of Historical Biography, Autumn 2010)
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Vancouver
Canada
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Illustrations
8 b&w illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Weight
480 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-7748-1741-7 (9780774817417)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Alan Gordon is an associate professor in the Department of History, University of Guelph.
Content
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 The Sixteenth-Century World and Jacques Cartier
2 Forgetting and Remembering
3 The Invention of a Hero
4 Cartiermania
5 Common Sense
6 The Many Meanings of Jacques Cartier
7 Decline and Dispersal
8 Failure and Forgetting
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Introduction
1 The Sixteenth-Century World and Jacques Cartier
2 Forgetting and Remembering
3 The Invention of a Hero
4 Cartiermania
5 Common Sense
6 The Many Meanings of Jacques Cartier
7 Decline and Dispersal
8 Failure and Forgetting
Notes
Bibliography
Index