When historians go bad

 Timothy Garton Ash on the newly elected President of Poland

Nawrocki is a 42-year-old nationalist historian and historical propagandist with virtually no international experience and an extremely dubious past as a young man (violent football hooliganism, strong connections with gangsters on the Baltic coast, an unsavoury story about more or less tricking an old man into handing over his council flat, alleged involvement in pimping prostitutes to guests at the hotel he was working at as a bouncer). He lacks, to put it mildly, the professional qualifications and personal qualities one would hope to see in the head of state of an important European country at a crucial turning point in European history.

Poland has a directly elected president whose role is largely ceremonial -- mostly, signing Parliament's bills into law.  But he's elected, so if he decides not to sign the bills into law, the government in parliament is pretty much blocked from doing much of anything.  

The government he can now block is progressive, pro-European, pro-Ukraine, and committed to civil rights and free speech.  Nawrocki is associated with the authoritarian-nationalist rival party that has been active in threatening to jail any historians who might publicize unflattering aspects of Polish history and in cleansing museums and textbooks of thoughtful and challenging aspects of the national history.  

A Short History of Death

Ruth Compton Brouwer's recent article in the Journal of Canadian Studies, “'[L]ike a page from history'? A Half-Century of Death Notices in The Globe and Mail" might be said to break new grounds. It's a study of the history of paid death notices over the last fifty years.

These aren't the obituaries written by journalists about the famous. Brouwer is interested in the paid death notices submitted to newspapers by families seeking to inform their friends and acquaintances about the death of a loved one. (The last surviving trace of the classified ad, almost.) 

Brouwer observes that death notices used to be short, factual, semi-official: date and cause of death, family links, time and place of funeral, etc. Not much more.

Barebones and sober in 1970, death notices evolved, albeit slowly, over the next several decades until, in the 21st century, they have become a lengthy and fulsome celebration of a life, a determined attempt to vivify the deceased’s unique personality. Their content reflects both the era when their subjects were in their heyday and the narrative choices that their biographers make in presenting their life and values.

Brouwer observes that "obvious airbrushing notwithstanding, death notices are a valuable source for scholars, providing a wealth of information about such matters as the significance, and signifiers, of social class, gender, religion, and family values in the fashioning of the deceased’s identity."

It has struck me occasionally that whenever the deceased had that simple cottage on Lake Whatever, the death notice will emphasize what an important place it played in their life. By comparison, actual homes barely rate a mention.

 

Moving pictures from Canada a century ago

We get mail, in this case from David Sobel:  

I wanted to share my website The Moving Past which has been in operation for a few months now.

Canada was the first country in the world to have a government-sponsored motion picture bureau. In 1917, Ontario formed its own motion picture bureau. The following year the Government of Canada created the Exhibits and Publicity Bureau, renaming it the Canadian Government Motion Picture Bureau in 1923. The reasons for their formation are discussed on the website. These two bureaus left behind a remarkable legacy of an estimated one thousand films, most of which are unknown and difficult to access.

My website hopes to change that. Seeking to capture the attention of academic historians and educators, the goal of the site is to make some of these productions available through streaming. Fifteen films are available right now, with plans to add six more by the Fall. More than 2,000 historians, from over 40 countries have watched the films so far. The site relies on small donations to function.

I invite you to take a look. There's a brief description of each of the films, which vary in length from three to 14 minutes. Some historiographical research has also been added. These productions are a mix of what I call "industrial documentaries" and "narratives of instruction". They have been edited slightly for more contemporary pacing and each film features either period or commissioned music to cater to classroom use. Silent film is somewhat of a misnomer anyway. Films were usually accompanied with live music.

 

 

 

We are the Derek Gee of Canadian History Blogs

Christopher Moore's History News -- the site you are reading right now -- has been ranked #3 in a new listing of 25 Best Canadian History Blogs compiled by the web-analysis site FeedSpot.

 3. Christopher Moore's History News

Blog https://christophermoorehistory.blogspot.com/ + Follow Blog
A shelf of historical essays and articles. I am Christopher Moore. I'm a writer. I'm a historian. Some days I'm a public speaker. Sometimes I'm drawn into cultural politics. 
Email ****@bell.net
Location Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Derek Gee, meanwhile, has moved up to fourth overall in the Giro. 

 

Giro d'Italia Notes

For all of you not following every twist and turn of the Giro d'Italia 2025, now two weeks into the three-week race: news flash: Canadian rider Derek Gee stands fifth over all.  Gee is leader of the partly Canadian-owned Israel Premier Tech team (Premier Tech being the Canadian part, obs.)  

Stage 15 (of 21) was run on Sunday, and Gee once more moved moved up a few places in the Maglia Rosa race. He's a big hill rider, and the big hills loom ahead.

Ryder Hesjedal remains the only Canadian to have won a Giro d'Italia (or any grand tour bike race, for that matter. 

Here's an article from Cycling News from when Gee was at 12th overall. 

History of Decline and Fall?

  Paul Krugman states what the vital American issue is:

The question is what happens if investors change their minds — if they decide that we’re an unserious country in which the governing party believes in voodoo economics and the president is an authoritarian ruler who spends much of his time rage-tweeting about popular musicians.

And what may happen: 

Right now I’m worried that the U.S. might be facing an emerging-market-type crisis: A “sudden stop,” an abrupt cutoff of inflows of foreign capital. If we have a crisis like that it could, in particular, cause a severe housing crash.

And reminds us of  something called Dornbusch's law:

"The crisis takes a much longer time coming than you think, and then it happens much faster than you could have thought."

 

 

History of Marie Dressler at the DCB

No one is old enough to remember Marie Dressler in her movie days.  She's famous in Canada as an early Canadian star, and familiar to olde Hollywood buffs, no doubt  But the DCB today publishes a biography of her that really brings out her full and complicated life. It's a hell of a story and an excellent biography by Cari Beauchamp. Not that long, and well worth a few minutes.

Imaginary problems of Canadian constitutional history

Emmett Macfarlane, in his SubStack "Defending Canadian Democracy" declares "It's time for a centralization movement in Canada."

I approve of a lot of what he argues. Except I'm not sure that "centralization" is or should really be what he's hoping for. As he says:

By a ‘centralization movement’ I do not mean we should be uploading more responsibilities to the federal level. 

"What we need" he says, "is to start championing the federal role." And even more, what we really need to do is give a firm slap upside the head of the provinces: 

Provincial governments routinely engage in buck-passing and blame-avoidance, attempts to pin responsibility on the federal government for matters under their own jurisdiction. From the deteriorated state of their health care systems to the housing crisis  [education too, he might have said], provinces demand federal action (and especially money) all while simultaneously decrying any attempt by the federal level to put in place conditions to ensure the money is spent on those areas.

So far, I'm all with him 

Where he goes wrong is in going to the constitution, and particularly by signing on to the hoary old theory from the 1930s that the evil Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (for some crazy and never persuasively explained reason) decided early on that power in Canada had to be radically decentralized from its supposedly Ottawa-centric original form, and therefore rewrote the British North America Act into a mandate for extreme levels of provincial power. 

I can't see this. 

Broadly, the JCPC, instead of being conned by the centralist propaganda of John A Macdonald, was right on the division of powers. The JCPC judges understood that the constitution of 1867 had indeed given the provinces lots of powers -- and kept Ottawa from vetoing the exercise of them. Sure, the JCPC often supported the provinces against Ottawa, just as it often ruled against Westminster when it attempted to intrude on Canadian control of Canadian matters. But it's a federalist constitution in its bones, it did not need the JCPC to invent federalism.

We don't need to "recentralize" the constitution -- it never was. And we don't need to encourage the Supreme Court of Canada to wade in. The problem ain't the constitution. It's fine. What we need to do -- and in fact this is mostly Macfarlane's argument -- is remind the provinces constantly that they have big responsibilities as well as big powers, and punish their governments when they fail to step up.

When our health systems start to fall apart, we need to hold our provincial governments responsible. They are the ones failing to maintain them; they deserve the blame.  Same with housing. Same with education. 

If provincial governments will act (as is and always has been their constitutional right and duty), federal funds will flow. These areas have always been provincial jurisdiction -- but the provinces need to take the lead. (Indeed in some cases they might usefully compete among themselves for which could come up with the best solutions to the problems of health, housing, education, and ....)

Let me be clear: I mostly agree with Emmett Macfarlane, and particularly when he declares:

It is time to start calling out a lot of provincial grievance for the rank bullshit it often is. For too long we have put up with a federalism in which provinces act like the whiny, selfish crybabies of Confederation.

But he's missing the point and muddying the waters when he blames the JCPC for our problems. The constitution is fine. Let's focus on declaring that the provinces have lots of powers -- and need to start taking up the responsibilities that go with them.  Right now let's blame the provinces for failing us on health care, and schools, and housing.

Tommy Douglas as premier of Saskatchewan didn't whine about federal underfunding of health services. He went out and invented medicare using the powers all the provinces already had, and the feds took it national by ponying up the cash. We need a premier or two to act like that. Just keep away from constitutional tinkering!

 

Emerging Historians in Toronto

Spacing magazine, the Toronto-centric magazine about urbanism, civic culture, and the built environment, has a nice little feature in the current issue about Heritage Toronto (a city agency) and its Emerging Historians program.  The program is addressed to: 

young historians and cultural workers [who] frequently face a choice between unpaid internships or volunteer positions -- stepping stones to an ideal career that many simply can't afford

Last year Emerging Historians offered $116,000 in short-term (and some longer-term) contracts "reshaping how the city's stories are told while preparing the next generation of historians to lead with passion and purpose," according to Shiri Yeung. 

All the emerging historians it profiles are younger and less known than all those I had thought of as emerging historians of Toronto.  But the ecology of podcast history, YouTube history, walking-tour history, and off-grid conference historians is alive and well -- a sharp contrast of the world of our old-white-guy community moaning about how the Canadian publishing ecology that used to support us seems to have withered away.  

The article "Next Generation Explores the Past" seems to be print-edition only, at least for the moment.

History of soft power

While out walking over the weekend, I happened to catch a recent episode of "The Rest is Politics" -- two clever and well-informed British politicos discussing British and world affairs. It was a questions-from-listeners episode (#402 here), and someone had a question about Mark Carney and King Charles. Co-host Rory Stewart quickly explained that Charles III is the head of state for Canada, and went on to say that it was:

an interesting question of the ways in which British soft power could be used with Trump 

and they went on. The takeaway seemed to be the king's visit to Canada, however brief, would remind Trump, Americans, and the world that Britain's empire still has global empire, and its dependencies should not be messed with, for fear of Britain's reaction.

I wondered if any of our monarchically-inclined pundits and analysts -- constantly telling themselves about the "Canadian" crown, how vital it is to our parliamentary existence, and what a pillar of national strength and identity it is -- would have had a frisson of doubt if they caught this convo.  

"British soft power," nothing more, a means to prop up Britain's dwindling influence in the world: that seems to be the world's only interest in the whole matter.

 

Prize Watch: The CHA Prizes for best books

The Canadian Historical Association is announcing its 2025 prizes, including this list for best scholarly book in Canadian history (in English) published in 2024.

Crystal Gail Fraser, By Strength, We Are Still Here: Indigenous Peoples and Indian Residential Schooling in Inuvik, Northwest Territories. University of Manitoba Press, 2024.
Gregory M.W. Kennedy, Lost in the Crowd: Acadian Soldiers of Canada’s First World War. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2024.
Mark G. McGowan, Finding Molly Johnson: Irish Famine Orphans in Canada. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2024.
Shannon Stunden Bower, Transforming the Prairies: Agricultural Rehabilitation and Modern Canada. University of British Columbia Press, 2024.
Matthew S. Wiseman, Frontier Science: Northern Canada, Military Research, and the Cold War, 1945-1970. University of Toronto Press, 2024.

Which lets me mention that I have been reading Gregory P. Marchildon's Tommy Douglas and the Quest for Medicare in Canada from U of T Press. It's a very big book and I have been proceeding slowly (not for lack of interest!).  I have been learning a great deal even about relatively recent events that I would have thought I was reasonably familiar with. 

So, more to say later.  But the thought had crossed my mind that this might be in the running for a prize like this one. Then -- checks copyright page) -- I find it was published this year, in 2025, so presumably not eligible for this prize this year.

Congratulations to these nominees for their 2024 books, and since I have not looked at any of the books nominated, I have no quibble with the jury's choices at all.

You can also consult the list of the four books up for the CHA's best French-language book here.  I have not read any of these either, though the New France one looks interesting.

Apparently the Congress -- where all the academic societies in the arts and social sciences, like the CHA, get together in a lollapalooza of a gathering every spring -- has been cancelled for 2026.  But that's too insiderish for me to parse.  I liked it better when it was called "the Learneds," anyway. I once had a sweatshirt that said that, with a nice pink rhododendron image. 

Book Notes: Alan Taylor on (North) American Civil Wars

What's so civil about a civil war?  Only that "civil" can mean of or pertaining to citizens or communities of citizens. Hence civil wars are wars within communities, within states.

It's a term the American historian Alan Taylor uses repeatedly and cleverly. In 2010 he published The Civil War of 1812. That's a civil war in his story because many Canadians fought on the American side, New Englanders who opposed the war struggled with western Americans who promoted it, Indigenous nations were pulled into both sides, and groups like the Irish tried to make it an aspect of their own national struggles.  It's probably the best book inspired by the War of 1812 bicentennial, offering a detailed history of the war while constantly alive to local details and discordant themes that rewrite the dominant narrative.

More recently Taylor has published American Civil Wars: A Continental History 1850-1873. It is obviously dominated by the American Civil War (indeed, it's part of a multi-book "continental history of the United States" he has been writing).  But Taylor emphasizes that at this time Mexico was also engaged in a civil war, one that included both American and French invasions, as well as a violent struggle between Mexico's conservative aristocracy and its burgeoning liberal underclass asserting the rights of poorer and even mixed race Mexicans. He is determined to bring in Canada too. There was no war over Canada, so he makes the most of Canada's need to prevent "violent division" between Francophones and Anglophones (plus the American military threat) in order to incorporate the national- building struggle of Canada into the continental story of civil strife in all three societies.

It's all very well done. Taylor is as good at seizing the broad lines and big socio-economic themes as at summarizing campaigns and battles. And he shapes it all with remarkable mini-biographies, like those of Jane McManus and Jane Cannon, two mid-century American women to whom he devotes the opening pages of this book  -- and, later in the story, Mary Ann Shadd Cary. He also takes pleasure at more than one point in pointing out repeated disproofs of the eternal American faith that Canadians are forever begging to be given "freedom" through annexation to the American colossus.

I'm well disposed to his Canadian coverage not only because he footnotes me often enough for some of his vivid details. His spotting of continent-wide themes is valuable and fresh. But really, his Canadian coverage is brief in comparison to the Mexican material, let along the American material. The bulk of his Canadian material draws on the mid-20th century histories of Creighton, Morton, and Careless, plus Richard Gwyn's Nation Maker, a well made book but one that draws most of its interpretative framework from the earlier consensus. 

I can't help but lament the thinness of the Canadian historical work compared to recent American and Mexican materials, which keeps him from giving a richer account of the issues being struggled over here. There just is not that much new political/diplomatic/military scholarship about mid-nineteenth century Canada from which he can draw. His brief notes on indigeneous policies and resistance are perceptive but very brief. On political matters, Macdonald comes out well without being hero-worshipped.