Almost Americans: Continental Sharing With the United States, the Great Academic hangeover and the Quest for Canadian Paradigms of U.S. History

Abstract

Given Canada's proximity to the United States, Canadians' tendency to define themselves as not Americans, and the almost overwhelming Ameri- can presence in Canada, one might expect to find a Canadian paradigm of U.S. history in virtually any work written by a Canadian. Historians in Canada have used paradigm theory to study history in general, so why not themselves? Furthermore, since the idea of a paradigm to explain historical change relies upon the identification of a given community with a distinct intellectual outlook, the sheer paucity of Americanist academics in Canada seems a significant advantage (Kuhn 1970, 174ff).