The Hero and the Historians
Historiography and the Uses of Jacques Cartier
This unique study focuses on one national hero – Jacques Cartier – to show how changing notions of the past have shaped the national identity of both English- and French-speaking Canada.
Description
Historians have long engaged in passionate debate about collective memory and national identity. Alan Gordon focuses on one national hero – Jacques Cartier – to explore how notions about the past have been passed from generation to generation in English- and French-speaking Canada and used to present particular ideas about the world. Nineteenth-century celebrations of Cartier reflected a new understanding of history that accompanied the arrival of modernity in North America. This sensibility, in turn, influenced the political and cultural currents of nation building in Canada. Cartier may have been a point of contact between English and French Canada, but the nature of that contact, as Gordon shows, had profound limitations.
Reviews
L’analyse des sources visuelles concernant les sports et la culture associative de Montréal que présente Poulter ouvre une nouvelle perspective sur le rôle identitaire des élites anglo-montréalaises dans la seconde moitié du XIXe siècle ... Son analyse détaillée et équilibrée intègre avec succès des sources visuelles et textuelles. Le sujet est développé de manière logique et claire, et l’auteur fait montre de rigueur. Il s’agit là d’une importante contribution à l’historiographie concernant le discours identitaire au Canada, qui élargit ce champ d’étude au-delà de la division souvent trop rigide posée entre le Québec et le reste du pays.
- Gillian I. Leitch, CDCI Research Inc.
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
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