Commemorating Canada
History, Heritage, and Memory, 1850s-1990s
Published on 4. February 2016
Book
Paperback/Softback
224 pages
978-1-4426-1061-3 (ISBN)
Description
Commemorating Canada is a concise narrative overview of the development of history and commemoration in Canada, designed for use in courses on public history, historical memory, heritage preservation, and related areas.
Examining why, when, where, and for whom historical narratives have been important, Cecilia Morgan describes the growth of historical pageantry, popular history, textbooks, historical societies, museums, and monuments through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Showing how Canadians have clashed over conflicting interpretations of history and how they have come together to create shared histories, she demonstrates the importance of history in shaping Canadian identity. Though public history in both French and English Canada was written predominantly by white, middle-class men, Morgan also discusses the activism and agency of women, immigrants, and Indigenous peoples. The book concludes with a brief examination of present-day debates over Canada's history and Canadians' continuing interest in their pasts.
Examining why, when, where, and for whom historical narratives have been important, Cecilia Morgan describes the growth of historical pageantry, popular history, textbooks, historical societies, museums, and monuments through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Showing how Canadians have clashed over conflicting interpretations of history and how they have come together to create shared histories, she demonstrates the importance of history in shaping Canadian identity. Though public history in both French and English Canada was written predominantly by white, middle-class men, Morgan also discusses the activism and agency of women, immigrants, and Indigenous peoples. The book concludes with a brief examination of present-day debates over Canada's history and Canadians' continuing interest in their pasts.
Reviews / Votes
'This is a book that should be widely read...All who are interested in Canadian history will benefit from this wide-reaching study.'- Tim Cook (Canada's History October-November 2016) 'This will be a useful resource for teaching how history has been used and abused for nationalist and other purposes.'
- J.I. Little (Canadian Historical Review vol 98:01:2017) 'Anyone interested in teaching students about how history of education can reveal prevailing contemporary attitudes would do well to assign this book.'
- Alan Gordon (Historical Studies in Education/Revue d'histoire de l'education, Spring 2017) "Commemorating Canada contributes to the series Themes in Canadian History, which aims at undergraduate readers by filling the gap between specialist monographs and textbooks. Cecilia Morgan pays careful attention to the ways particular communities have fronted their versions of history, from Roman Catholic francophones in Quebec, to First Nations, to African Canadians. She is also attentive to gender roles."
- Margery Fee (Canadian Literature No. 235) "Commemorating Canada offers a deep and thoroughly informative history of what collective remembering in Canada has been in the past and invites attention to what it is yet to become."
- Scott Herder, University of Toronto (University of Toronto Quarterly, vol 87 3, Summer 2018)
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Toronto
Canada
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 213 mm
Width: 137 mm
Thickness: 18 mm
Weight
295 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4426-1061-3 (9781442610613)
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
Cecilia Morgan is Professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto. She is the author of Commemorating Canada: History, Heritage, and Memory, 1850-1990s (2016), as well as Creating Colonial Pasts: History, Memory, and Commemoration in Southern Ontario, 1860-1980 (2015).
Content
1. Introduction
2. History and Memory, 1750s-1870s
3. The Heyday of Public Commemorations in Canada: 1870s-1920s
4. Remembering Canada at War
5. Commemoration, Historical Preservation, and the Canadian State
6. Shaping History through Tourism
7. Teaching the Nation Its History: Schoolchildren and the Canadian Past
8. Epilogue
2. History and Memory, 1750s-1870s
3. The Heyday of Public Commemorations in Canada: 1870s-1920s
4. Remembering Canada at War
5. Commemoration, Historical Preservation, and the Canadian State
6. Shaping History through Tourism
7. Teaching the Nation Its History: Schoolchildren and the Canadian Past
8. Epilogue