Sebag Montefiore (and me) on the history of the world

Googling myself yesterday (hey, I was hoping an online link would take me quickly to something I wrote), I came across a very nice review by an American librarian and critic, Betsy Bird, of my 2011 history of the world, From Then to Now. Her review is also from 2011, but I'd never come across it before.  It strikes me as very thoughtful and very complimentary too, which is lovely.

Oddly, it turns up just as I have been indulging myself in another world history --  one that is a good thousand pages longer than mine.  It's The World: A Family History of Humanity by the British historian Simon Sebag Montefiore.  I was impressed some time ago by his Court of the Red Tsar, which combines vividly personal, almost gossipy, detail about the circles of people about Stalin's Kremlin with a very clearheaded account of the fantastically murderous sociopathy that underpinned the dictator's government as well as his personal life.  And I've heard his Jerusalem highly praised too.

I was hoping for a similar mix of personal stories and larger historical sweep in The World, but Montefiore declares "I am a historian of power and geopolitics is the engine of world history," His knowledge base is immense and the big book rattles on a tremendous pace, but he delivers a very military/political vision of the past. There are lots of trumpets-and-drums accounts of the way that a zillion states and dynasties rose and fell across the world and across the millennia. These are juxtaposed against lurid stories of the bad behaviour of kings and the women and children around them (that's the family part). 

But surely there should be more to the history of humanity. It begins to feels as if Montefiore's gossipy side has triumphed. 

I began to think, indeed, that in my own world history -- it's a kid's book, remember, just 188 pages -- I covered a lot of big topics far beyond Montefiore's scope  -- the nature of religions, the meaning of legal structures, the shaping of agriculture and trade -- without being entirely boring about it. So I discovered Betsy Bird's viewpoint just at the right time:  

As you read, you realize that Moore’s focus is vast. It contains multitudes. He’ll mention the gardeners of the Middle East then segue casually into the island of New Guinea, the river valleys of China, Central American valleys, and other parts of Africa. Reading this, kids get the sense of worldwide connections. One culture comes up with this technique and it is found over here in this other culture as well. Moore’s focus is wide at the start of the book. He’ll give the Greeks and Romans their time in the sun but not before he’s discussed “The Golden Empires” of 5000 BCE – 1000 CE and cultures that cultivated laws and gods from the same time period. Europe get a chapter of its own, but its title is “A Peninsula West of Asia” which is a nice change for folks who’ve heard Asia referred to as “the far east” all these years.

Damn right, Betsy. And thanks! (The praise for illustrator Andrej Krystoforski is dead-on too.)

    

New at the Literary Review of Canada: me on the Cundill History Prize finalists

Nice to lie about enjoying fruitcake and chocolate and reading Fire Weather and A Christmas Carol and new cookbooks and all, while The Literary Review of Canada is busy publishing "In the Spotlight," my review of the 2023 Cundill History Prize finalists. 

The books this year are Tania Branigan's Red Memory, about consequences of China's Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution;

Kate Cooper's Queens of a Fallen World, about the roots of Augustinian theology, sort of; 

and James Morton Turner's Charged, which is both a history of batteries and a powerful exploration of what the low carbon energy revolution will work and what it will require. 

AI and I: a short history. Also Merry Christmas

 The AI craze has been mostly a great nuisance to me this year.  I rely on a Microsoft Surface laptop -- PC/Windows all the way around here, sorry! --and have gradually come to accept Microsoft's Edge and Bing and OneDrive for browser and search engine and backup.  But with Microsoft being quick to AI and to incorporating AI in everything, I've been feeling like a unwilling test dummy most of the year.  

When I'm working in Word, Microsoft's AI "helpers" have seem to pop up at the most inconvenient times, cluttering my screen and trying to give me advise and support I don't want.  I spent too much time this year trying get MS Office out of my way:  seeking how to close, block, and shut down help services I was not asking for.  

And when I did a quick search for something, Bing, instead of providing the most likely search responses, seemed determined to give me its own little potted summary of what AI knews about the matter, almost always in a form that looked like sophomoric Wikipedia articles from a couple of decades ago. (These days, Wikipedia is pretty impressive a lot of the time, I'd say).  AI, obviously, was simply compiling what the internet knew, and on a lot of things I wanted to know, what the internet provided simply not very sophisticated -- indeed sometimes seemed simply to be a uncredited paraphrase of Wikipedia.  I was learning to ignore all the first listed items on Bing to get to the genuine article.

At my end, artificial intelligence seemed to be mostly artificial trivia.

One big exception.  From time to time I do interviewing over the phone, and the problem of keeping notes, making recordings, and getting transcripts was always a problem.  A couple of years ago I discovered Otter.ai, a web-based recording and transcribing service.  Initiate a phone call, turn on Otter, and not only do you get a sound recording but on the laptop screen you can see the transcript of the conversation creating itself in real time as you talk.

Except. Otter transcripts were terrible. It just did not hear very well, and introduced such an enormous amount of word salad into its texts as to make revision almost as tedious as typing one's one transcript while listening to a recording. (Almost. I still used Otter.)

Anyway, this week I was doing a bunch more interviews with historians for an article, for the first time in  a year.  And damned if Otter has not improved markedly while I've been away. Listening to and transcribing and seeing the corrections of many millions of words, AI does indeed "learn."  These transcripts still make spectacular mondegreens (eg, your interviewee says "the Asian community" and you see "age infirmity" appear on the developing transcript).  But not nearly so many as it did very recently, though doubtless more than it will be creating in a few more months.

Which is to say:  if you need transcripts, give yourself a Christmas present and sign up to one of these  services and see how it works. (This is not really a commercial for Otter.  There are lots of competing services, and no doubt something similar will be incorporated in the Microsoft Office suite (and the Apple equivalent) and will drive all the standalone ones out of business.  Take your pick.)  But AI is not entirely a nuisance and a threat.   

That it for this blog for 2023, I think -- a year we are probably willing to put behind us.  This blog will return in 2024, no doubt.      

History of leadership corruption

Andrew Coyne comments on news reports that Chinese and Indian government agencies purchased memberships in the Conservative Party in order to support more China-friendly or India-friendly candidates in the party’s 2022 leadership "race."

The democratic deficiencies of this peculiar method of choosing a leader have long been apparent. Far from “the members” selecting the leader, the choice is as often as not decided by thousands of instant members, with no connection to the party prior to voting day and scarcely more afterward. Once chosen by this cloud of mist, the leader is essentially accountable to no one, while members of caucus are obliged to submit to the near-absolute rule of someone they had not the least hand in choosing.

Coyne’s not tough enough here. The Canadian political parties have all made party leadership a matter of nothing but capital investment – whichever campaign invests in buying the most votes (“memberships”) gets to own the party until the next leadership-selection orgy. China and India are just following the path blazed by property developers and ethnic cliques and, who knows, the Hell’s Angels, to say nothing of leadership-campaign bagmen.

PS. MPs are duly elected representatives of the Canadian people, and cannot be "obliged" to submit whatever rules self-important party officials dream up. Canadian MPs just choose to submit, because everyone tells them it's their duty to.

Patrice Dutil on the "absence" of history UPDATED

[December 13: See Patrice Dutil's response below my post. Further replies welcome.]

 I happened to hear Larry Ostola interviewing Patrice Dutil on the Witness to Yesterday podcast the other day, when they were discussing Dutil’s new edited collection, Statesmen, Strategists & Diplomats: Canada’s Prime Ministers and the Making of Foreign Policy. 

In the Literary Review of Canada a few years ago, Jack Granatstein called Dutil’s previous edited collection, The Unexpected Louis St-Laurent, “one of the few recent edited collections held together by more than the binding.” The podcast discussion of Statesmen… confirms that the coherence of that collection was no accident. Dutil describes how an editor should create a collection of essays. In the case of Statesmen, he goaded his invited contributors into focusing on issues he identified, sent them questionnaires for judging the prime ministers on predetermined criteria, and generally wielded a strong editorial hand to ensure the collection had more order and consistency than such volumes generally display. Obviously this is hard on the contributor who had planned to submit some halfbaked piece on a vaguely related topic, but it does make for essay collections that are actually worth reading. Would-be editors, take note.

This Patrice Dutil – call him Dutil One -- is a well-organized guy. He knows what the historical/cultural scene needs and is not shy about making it happen. He founded the Literary Review in which Granatstein later reviewed him. While leading the Champlain Society, he put the organization back on its financial feet, enlarged its membership, and modernized its programs. He also launched the Witness to Yesterday podcast on which he was interviewed. His own scholarship, meanwhile, ranges from nineteenth-century Quebec politics to the roots of modern public administration, and his books range widely across the Canadian political past. I admire him hugely. (He’s also a friend of mine.)

But there’s this other Patrice Dutil – Deuxtil? -- who perplexes me. Because I was also recently reading his essay, "Past Imperfect" in November’s Literary Review. That issue of the Review covered, among other things:

• ·    the latest bestseller by historian Charlotte Gray;
• ·      Ken Dryden’s history of suburban youth in the 1960s;
• ·      an oral history of Montreal’s Haitian street gangs;
• ·      RH Thomson’s meditation on First World War family history;
• ·      Ken McGoogan’s sixth book on Arctic exploration history;
• ·      A history of black Canadian athletes in the early 20^th century. 
• ·      Michael Crummey’s latest novel of Newfoundland history.

And then there is also the essay from the Deuxtil side to tell you none of these books really exists. Because Canadian history is dead. His topic sentence is “The absence of Canadian history is clear for those who have even a passing knowledge about it.” And the culprit is, well, “wokeness” and the spineless trend-seeking of policymakers and bureaucrats.

The claims of Deuxtil strike me as, well, implausible. Simply to juxtapose them against the contrary evidence, as above, seems to undermine them almost fatally. Still, dead?

“[By the 1990s] all the provinces had washed Canadian history out of the high school curriculum.” Really? My kids went through the Toronto public school system in the 1990s and 2000s. They got lots of history, even when it was labelled social studies or something else. Just because every grownup says, “They never taught us that in school!” does not actually mean they weren’t taught that in school.

“Only the disregard of history can explain the removal of most of the monuments to Sir John A. Macdonald.” Only the disregard of history? Didn’t learning some history -- of the operations of the Indian Act, the neglect of treaty obligations, the consequences of the residential school system – also play a part in those decisions? Deuxtil can disagree with the conclusions people draw, but that’s hardly evidence of history being “disregarded.” Monuments once noticed only by pigeons now provoke lively discussion everywhere.

University presses … are practically the only ones still willing to publish Canadian history.  But non-academic presses published pretty much all the history books reviewed in the LRC alongside Patrice’s essay. The other day the society that publishes Canada's History magazine brought out its annual Book and Gift Guide to promote literally hundreds of historical works from academic and non-academic presses all over the country. Also in November, it sponsored an event at Rideau Hall in Ottawa to honour history teachers doing inspirational work in schools across the country  -- though Deuxtil assures us there are no history teachers in schools across the country.

“To compare [the CBC’s] awareness of history with that of its counterparts in the United States and in Europe is to invite ridicule.” Well, watch “Real Time with Bill Maher” some Friday night: it is almost guaranteed he will abuse young Americans for their pitiful ignorance of their history. Americans constantly lament  their country’s ignorance of history. The Brits do the same, and in France ignorance of the past is a crise nationale in perpetuity. Every country has pundits who believe their youth to be uniquely ignorant of their nation’s glorious past.

Now, Deuxtil's concerns are not entirely ill-placed. I surely do share Patrice’s faith in the valuable things history can provide. It would indeed be good if Canadian history was more written about, and published more, and found in more bookstores, and read more, and taught more, and discussed more, and if all us practitioners were showered with more respect and more money by our grateful and admiring fellow citizens. Free lunches too, maybe.

But arguments about the parlous state of Canadian history in recent decades need to be put in some historical context. There’s history here that seems terribly absent from Deuxtil’s determination that the less-than-optimal conditions for a thriving historical conversation in Canada amounts to the death of history at the hands of wokeness.

A few decades ago, we entered into free trade agreements with the United States and the rest of the world. These offered fulsome “guarantees” of continued protection for Canadian culture. But very rapidly thereafter, all the major Canadian publishing houses became American-owned. The place of independent booksellers and the share of Canadian-authored titles in the Canadian book market both began a rapid decline soon after, from about twenty per cent to about five per cent. As the artist Charles Pachter used to say, what makes art universal is promotion and distribution. Shouldn’t control over decisions about the promotion and distribution of Canadian writing of all kinds be relevant to discussions of the decline, or “death,” of historical writing?  

Also: many Canadian provincial governments have for decades joined the political trend that promotes privatization, tax-cutting, and reduced public spending as the path to prosperity. Education budgets have been tightened -- so were health budgets and housing budgets, but let’s stick with education -- and priorities shifted toward job preparedness. Those policies have been tough on music programs and remedial math classes and the English curriculum, but yes, also on history teaching. The matter needing attention here is not some special plea for history. It’s the policy framework of educational spending by provincial governments. 

Sure, the CBC’s not what it might be  -- but should we put the blame solely on statue-removers and curriculum planners? The CBC’s current weaknesses need to be related to policy choices that have undermined Canadian telecommunications content in favour of private networks and unrestricted foreign streaming services. “It’s the state or the United States,” said a smart guy nearly a century ago who was worried about Canadians knowing enough about themselves.

To the extent the losses that Deuxtil mourns actually exist, these causes seem more consequential than cynical media or changes in some place names.    

But still: A country that has fallen asleep and forgotten its past? If it had, I would have had to find a new line of work decades ago. I’m still not dead yet. You aren’t either, Patrice. Let’s do lunch.

UPDATE, December 13:  Patrice has thoughts:

Old friend, I look forward to this discussion. You will see, after a long COVID separation, that I am still one. Thanks for your blog on my article in the November 2023 issue of the Literary Review of Canada. It was my attempt to salute the 25^th anniversary of J.L. Granatstein’s Who Killed Canadian History? and it's continued relevance.

Now, you’re not happy with me and I welcome your challenge, but I think we’re on the same side of the tracks here. You don’t agree with me that history has been neglected in Canada or that the general ignorance of our past by our governing politicians has had a deplorable effect on our civic culture. I think you're wrong. We passed significant anniversaries in this country--the Great War, that claimed over 66,000 young lives a hundred years ago and, of course, the 150th anniversary of Confederation, without notice. Did I miss the documentary featuring Christopher Moore talking about what happened 150 years to create a country that, against all odds, has survived? Or, for that matter, your cross-country lecture series on the topic? As a society, we practically did nothing--nothing of genuine, lasting importance, for sure.

You point out that very issue in which my essay was published featured no less than seven articles on various aspects of Canadian history. The LRC no doubt delivered another excellent issue but you are pointing to the ONLY oasis in the desert of Canadian print culture. The LRC was pointedly created in 1991 for that very purpose. Now, is there a second such publication that does this? Many friends point out that Canada’s History seems to be doing just fine, so what’s the problem? Again, I delight in the continued existence of the old Beaver magazine, but I don’t know about its state of health. I hope it continues to thrive. Is there a third? I would also point out the Dorchester Review, another small journal that caters to more conservative tastes but that focuses on Canadian history tirelessly and that boldly challenges conventional thinking. Ok, we’re up to three. For me, that’s just not enough. 

Our newspapers don’t carry enough articles that are historically minded—by that I mean that they will carry commentary that stretches back to uncover precedents to what is currently happening. There's stuff on the internet, of course. But it's not reliable and its riches can only be sought after if there's an appetite for it. The appetite for a shared experience of history--a rich one that includes innovative museum exhibits, lively debates, and an ongoing conversation is just not available in the country. 

Let’s look at the  school curriculum. Sure, your children attended Ontario high schools, where a credit in Canadian History is a requirement to graduate. The same thing exists in Manitoba, and in Quebec (for grades 7-11). Elsewhere in Canada, our high school history is wrapped into “social” or “civic” studies. It’s just not enough, Chris. Students are not taught how to "think historically"--you know well that it is a habit of mind. Instead, they learn trivia--stuff they forget instantly. 

You seem to condone the vandalism and removal of the statues to Sir John A. Macdonald. I found this to be deeply sad. The monuments, school names, street names, building names, were renamed without any serious, informed debate and simply because a very small segment of the population militated for it (nobody else cared). I don’t understand why you don’t share my sadness. Did these people not read your 1867: How the Fathers made a Deal or your Three Weeks in Quebec? I know you have your doubts about Macdonald—I do too. But your books showed eloquently how Macdonald was at the centre of things. Your books were ignored. Canadian cities and towns are putting up as “public art” utter monstrosities instead. Canada is diminished by this thoughtless erasing of a man who was considered a hero in his day. How very unfair to that generation.

Onto books, now. It is now very difficult to publish history books outside university presses. Of course, many are, but we are far from the days when the much regretted Macmillan of Canada or McClelland and Stewart routinely published great books of history. There is just no market for Canadian history books. Have you seen the "Canadian History" section at Indigo? The world doesn't seem to need much of Canada, after all. Charlotte Gray has lamented the lack of support for freelance history writers. I agree. We need more research on this topic, though. 

Last, I just don’t see your point on the CBC’s appalling record in covering Canada’s history. I think it’s a deep shame. The CBC, because it has the money and the mandate—and I’m talking about its television networks, here, not radio, because I’ve heard you there a few times —  lost its way on this a long time ago. Show me a documentary—even an interview of Christopher Moore explaining his books on CBC-tv (or any other network outside TVOntario's niche The Agenda, and I’ll reconsider my views). Had it done its job right, I’d be assigning documentaries profiling you to my students. Heck, had the CBC done its job right, you with your Hollywood-handsome looks, would be hosting a weekly program. You should be the Canadian male equivalent of Lucy Worlsey on the BCC! I’ll note that the historians who actually make it to CBC radio are very few and far between. I’ve published ten books and never once have been invited to appear. Yes, I’m jealous, but I can live with it (God forgive me). Compare that to other public televisions in the US, France, Britain, Germany? You're pulling my leg.

You and I both agree that public policy has failed here. Just look at what is happening in Toronto regarding its Dundas Street. No other jurisdiction is looking to change the name Dundas because there is simply no evidence that he ever acted to delay the abolition of slavery. It was the complete opposite! This is the same city council that is now looking at the possibility of naming a neighbourhood stadium in honour of Rob Ford, the late mayor who embarrassed the city around the world with his shameless duplicity and incompetent management.

I’m convinced that Canadians of all regions and all stripes are eager to learn more about their history. The problem is indeed the curriculum makers and their politician enablers. Can the tide be turned? I see hope in the new Canadian Institute of Historical Education (CIHE.CA). These brave people—who are putting their dollars on the line, with no tax credits whatsoever—deserve support.

I want to point out that history--Canadian history in particular--is dying at the university level. People who focused on political history are retiring and they are not being replaced. That's your market, Christopher? For me, that's the core question: How do we rebuild the market and the appetite for Canadian history? It’s a conversation you and I need to have when we discuss our newest discoveries. Now pass the salt, my soup's getting cold.

Update, December 18:  Elsbeth Heaman comments:

Dear Patrice, I very much enjoyed your response to Christopher Moore and agree with several of your arguments (though not all, of course, thinking mine own little scholarly contribution was a real addition in 2017. Jack G. thought so too, you know, told me so!).

But I cannot resist observing that the call is coming from inside the house. I attach a screenshot of something I sent to my (11!) followers on Mastodon the other day. If the partisan-conservative political scientists are the vanguard of the attack on and erasure of history, as here suggested by their ignorance of your work on Macdonald, including the collection of essays that surely deserves some mention, then why blame left historians? Why not begin with your own Augean stable?!  

Happy holidays, hope you are well, I hope the covid distance you mention wasn’t a personal incapacitation.  

 

Histoire des historians

For about thirty years I wrote a column for The Beaver magazine and its successor Canada's History. Lately I've shifted to feature articles, but it seemed to me that in the column I managed to more-or-less invent a new genre in Canada: historical journalism.  By that I mean not "popular" journalistic-style historical writing, but journalism about historians and historical practice.  

That column consistently profiled historians, covered historical controversies, surveyed trends and currents in the field, promoted adjacent practitioners, and saluted local and regional stars. I did not interview every historian of Canada, but I interviewed quite a few. Often enough it seemed they had never been interviewed about their work before, not by someone who actually knew their work. It seemed like a worthwhile endeavour, though as far as I know I'm the only one who ever noticed the field-building going on.

So I was happy to find something kindred in the December 2023 Literary Review of Canada that recently arrived. Graham Fraser, who has made something of a specialty of noting interesting books published in French in Quebec and mostly invisible beyond, reviews L'école d'histoire de Québec: une histoire intellectuelle by François-Olivier Dorais, who teaches at UQ at Chicoutimi.

It's an account of the long debate of the Montreal school (mostly Marcel Séguin and Michel Brunet) and the Quebec school (mostly Marcel Trudel, Fernand Ouellet, and Jean Hamelin). Broadly from the 1950s until they all died or retired, the Montrealers took a rather traditional view of Quebec society with an emphasis on all that was lost in the English conquest, while the Quebeckers rather minimized the glories of New France and noticed the enormous progress Lower Canada/Quebec made after the conquest. Fernand Ouellet liked to define nub of the historical difference here as "the national" versus "the social" history of Quebec.  

It was a familiar story to history students a generation ago and mapped easily onto the nationalist/federalist struggle within Quebec. Both Marcel Trudel and Fernand Ouellet of the Quebec school eventually felt compelled to move to Ontario universities. (I studied with them both -- though I also got to know Denis Vaugeois, who Fraser identifies with the Montrealers.) Nice to see Dorais reviving attention to these big intellectual currents in the history of Canadian history, and Fraser making us anglos aware of his book's existence -- and of treating historical work as part of Canadian culture.  

Appeal from the Dictionary of Canadian Biography

I thought this was a pretty effective fundraising letter from the Dictionary of Canadian Biography.  So we're giving in kind, i.e., passing on the message.

His name was never recorded. He was 14 years old when he was listed for sale in the settlement of Shelbourne N.S. in 1786 — one of around a thousand Black people who were enslaved in the Maritimes. With only the evidence of a slave advertisement to go on, the Dictionary of Canadian Biography/Dictionnaire biographique du Canada (DCB/DBC) has reconstructed his story and placed it in a wider context. It will be published next February during Black History Month.
Since 1966, the DCB/DBC has provided fascinating biographical insights into people from all eras and backgrounds. The DCB/DBC recognizes the importance and need to highlight these stories, such as the one mentioned above, as well as include recent scholarship into the lives of Indigenous people, women, racialized communities, and the working classes.

This ambitious work-in-progress, updated weekly online, would not have been possible without the support of friends and donors like you. Thank you!

The work is unfinished and there has never been a greater need for this thorough, authoritative, bilingual, and accessible resource that includes biographical details of “ordinary people” from Canada’s history.

Your gift to DCB/DBC will help maintain our reputation for publishing new online biographies weekly that meet the highest standards of scholarship and continue to draw glowing reviews from our readers.

Update, December 8:  Russ Chamberlayne offers some archival sources relevant to the DCB's anonymous fourteen-year old of 1786:

For sale: "A likely Negro Wench, between Ten and Eleven Years of Age, has had the small Pox and Measles[....]": https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=YFjsv_pBGBYC&dat=17860801&printsec=frontpage

British naval officer sells "One Negro Man Named Sambo[...]and also One Brown Mare and her Colt now Sucking" to Truro physician for £40: https://archives.novascotia.ca/africanns/archives/?ID=17

Reward of 40 shillings for return of "Negro Man who answers to the Name of James," is 28 and has "a Nose rather acqueline": https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=YFjsv_pBGBYC&dat=17860801&printsec=frontpage

Missing indented Black man Henry Jones, tanner by trade, "has a remarkable impediment in his speech [and] is very artful": https://archives.novascotia.ca/newspapers/archives/?ID=127&Page=200909074

"Free Negroes" in Manchester, N.S. petition for land, farm tools, clothing, ammunition and boards "we are intitled to" after two years: https://archives.novascotia.ca/africanns/archives/?ID=36

 

John Courtney (1936-2023), political scientist RIP

The death of John Courtney, the political scientist and longtime professor at the University of Saskatchewan, was noted in a moving obituary a few days ago.

I met Professor Courtney a few times and once interviewed him at some length on the subject of political party leadership conventions in Canada. He was one of the rare political scientists in Canada to see that the functioning of a parliamentary system is greatly impeded if party leaders are not part of and accountable to the parliamentary party caucus. 

He influenced my own thinking along those lines, though in Do Conventions Matter?, his big book on the subject, he somewhat backed away from that proposition, preferring to defend the delegated in-person convention over the all-member-vote process then beginning to take over.

He was a charming, friendly man, and very encouraging to anyone interested in Canadian politics, it seemed to me.