Queen's University Press Research Articles

The Habsburg Empire under Siege. Ottoman Expansion and Hungarian Revolt in the Age of Grand Vizier Ahmed Köprülü (1661–1678). By Gerge B. Michels. Montreal and Kingston – Chicago – London: McGill – Queen's University Press, 2021. xvii + 603 pp. $85.00 cloth.

The Habsburg Empire under Siege. Ottoman Expansion and Hungarian Revolt in the Age of Grand Vizier Ahmed Köprülü (1661–1678). By Gerge B. Michels. Montreal and Kingston – Chicago – London: McGill – Queen's University Press, 2021. xvii + 603 pp. $85.00 cloth. - Volume 91 Issue 3

The Transcultural Streams of Chinese Canadian Identities by Jessica Tsui-Yan Li

Reviewed by: The Transcultural Streams of Chinese Canadian Identities by Jessica Tsui-Yan Li Jacqueline Ng Jessica Tsui-Yan Li. The Transcultural Streams of Chinese Canadian Identities. Quebec: McGill Queen's University Press, 2019. 204 pp. Images. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $34.95 sc; $110.00 hc. Affirming the momentous impact of Chinese Canadians on socioeconomic power and cultural imprints in Canadian society, The Transcultural Streams of Chinese Canadian Identities, edited by Jessica Tsui-Yan Li, presents a timely, far-reaching book discussing how Chinese Canadians have been undergoing acute challenges of social survival and negotiating their ethnic identities and power relations in Canada over the past decades. The term "Chinese Canadian" refers to anyone of Chinese descent who settles, lives, or works in Canada and has a transcultural and transnational identity. To review the postcolonialist stereotypical definition of Chinese Canadians as immigrants of expatriation or deracination, Transcultural Streams adopts an interdisciplinary approach to study the multiple collective identities of Chinese Canadians, suggesting an imperative need to rethink the identities of Chinese Canadians who are perceived as "socially privileged" in their homeland but are yet devalued or marginalized as the "so-called Other" (6) in Canada. The compelling arguments of this volume are strategically arranged in: Part 1: Revisiting migrant transcultural identities; Part 2: Re-evaluating challenges and struggles of Chinese Canadians; and Part 3: Reshaping and Re-positioning Chinese Canadian identities. This book uses a multidisciplinary, mixed-method approach to explore the intersectionality and heterogeneity of Chinese Canadian identities from the critical lenses of renowned scholars, academic researchers, cultural producers, poets and literary writers who jointly contribute to the "intersectional discourse" in order to highlight the "diversity and fluidity of Chinese Canadian identities in the face of various forms of subjugation and power imbalance" (10). Part 1 (Chapters 1–3) revisits the transcultural identities of Chinese Canadians, mainly those early immigrants from Hong Kong around the late 1960s, from historical, sociocultural, linguistic, and literary perspectives. A dramatic influx of Hong Kong immigrants to Canada resulted mainly because they foresaw political uncertainties in their home country as the handover of Hong Kong's sovereignty was approaching, and their worries about the colony's future was intensified by the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989. These Chinese immigrants, however, were found to have low attachment to Canadian society as they had to endure cultural conflicts and institutional racism in [End Page 135] the new country. They were expected to consistently negotiate their job opportunities, lifestyle, and power relations with local residents. In light of their detachment from the mainstream in Canada, many Hong Kong immigrants decided to remodel their family structure to "astronaut" families (13), with one parent (usually the father) returning to Hong Kong to work and financially support their families, while the mother and the children were left in Canada to receive Western education and maintain their Canadian citizenship. They were perceived by Canadian society simply as Chinese foreigners living in Canada, while in their homeland, "they were considered sojourners, or Huaqiao, Chinese living temporarily outside of China" (175). These Chinese Canadians could hardly find strong roots in their cultural identities when they were exposed to different values, perceptions, traditions, customs, and practices across cultural and national boundaries. Part 2 (Chapters 4–6) re-evaluates the prevailing challenges of Chinese Canadians by articulating their persistent struggles in the social, economic, gender and cultural contexts. Although most Chinese Canadians were reassured that they were not obligated to assimilate into a melting pot, they still encountered tough integration problems during identity transition. Upon their arrival to Canada, many Chinese Canadians, particularly immigrant women, have experienced "downward social and occupational mobility" (102). Regardless of whether most Chinese Canadians were wealthy investors or well-educated professionals in their homeland, they were marginalized with overflowing impediments in the new country including limited employment opportunities, non-recognition of earned qualifications, low household income, language barriers and racial discrimination which have all made it difficult for Chinese Canadians to achieve social engagement and acculturation. They consequently preferred staying within their comfort zone in which they were less likely to experience social isolation, exclusion, and racism. The idealism of preserving dual identities for Chinese Canadians is still a long...

A. B. Simpson and the making of the modern Evangelicalism. By Daryn Henry. (Studies in the History of Religion, Series 2, 87.) Pp. xvi + 403 incl. 9 figs and 1 table. London–Montreal & Kingston: McGill–Queen's University Press, 2019. £27.99 (paper). 978 0 7735 5927 1

A. B. Simpson and the making of the modern Evangelicalism. By Daryn Henry. (Studies in the History of Religion, Series 2, 87.) Pp. xvi + 403 incl. 9 figs and 1 table. London–Montreal & Kingston: McGill–Queen's University Press, 2019. £27.99 (paper). 978 0 7735 5927 1 - Volume 72 Issue 1

J.I. Little, At the Wilderness Edge: The Rise of the Antidevelopment Movement on Canada's West Coast. Montreal: McGill–Queen's University Press, 2019. x + 216pp. 11 figures. 5 maps. Bibliography. £91.00 cloth.

J.I. Little, At the Wilderness Edge: The Rise of the Antidevelopment Movement on Canada's West Coast. Montreal: McGill–Queen's University Press, 2019. x + 216pp. 11 figures. 5 maps. Bibliography. £91.00 cloth. - Volume 47 Issue 3

Cecilia Morgan. Travellers through Empire: Indigenous Voyages from Early Canada. McGill–Queen's Native and Northern Series 91. Montreal: McGill–Queen's University Press, 2017. Pp. 326. $39.95 (cloth).

Cecilia Morgan. Travellers through Empire: Indigenous Voyages from Early Canada. McGill–Queen's Native and Northern Series 91. Montreal: McGill–Queen's University Press, 2017. Pp. 326. $39.95 (cloth).

The Canny Scot: Archbishop James Morrison of Antigonish by Peter Ludlow

Reviewed by: The Canny Scot: Archbishop James Morrison of Antigonishby Peter Ludlow Santo Dodaro The Canny Scot: Archbishop James Morrison of Antigonish. By Peter Ludlow. [ McGill-Queen's Studies in the History of Religion, vol. 72.] (Montreal: McGill–Queen's University Press. 2015. Pp. xvi, 330. $34.95 paperback. ISBN 978-0-7735-4498-7.) In The Canny Scot, Peter Ludlow presents a multidimensional characterization of James Morrison (1861–1950), Bishop and Archbishop of Antigonish, Nova Scotia, describing the nature of the man, his life, and his time in history. Ludlow details Morrison's many contributions to the Catholic Church in general and the Diocese of Antigonish in particular, his role as Chancellor of St. Francis Xavier University (StFXU) in strengthening the institution, and his contribution to the establishment of the University's Extension Department and the promotion of the Antigonish Movement. Ludlow portrays Morrison as an exceptional man in exceptional circumstances, intensely private, austere and committed to his faith, but also pragmatic. [End Page 583]As a young priest in Prince Edward Island (PEI), Morrison served as rector of St. Dunstan's College and oversaw the building of St. Dunstan's Cathedral. He took his tasks to heart and refused to cater to special interests, political or otherwise. The term "canny Scot", which was ascribed to Morrison by Father Jimmy Tompkins, reflected his approach in protecting the interests of the Church and the well-being of his parishioners, as well as those of StFXU. Morrison's accomplishments and shortcomings are described within their local and global historical contexts. For example, Ludlow discusses the economic plight of the rural areas of the Maritime Provinces and industrial Cape Breton, as well as the global concerns related to the World Wars and their aftermaths. Ludlow presents Morrison's role in the emergence and spread of the Antigonish Movement as complementary to that of Fathers Moses Coady and Tompkins, stressing his facilitation role; without his willingness to allow priest-professors to participate, the movement may never have occurred. While conservative and fiscally prudent, Morrison understood that action was required ,and it was best to give Coady and the others the freedom to carry it out. Ludlow also notes that Morrison may have 'overstayed' in his role as bishop. Efforts towards encouraging him to retire included granting him the title of Archbishop. Moreover, the appointment of Bishop John R. MacDonald to assist him was not well received by Morrison, who continued to carry out his functions in the same way as before, virtually until his death at age eighty-eight in 1950. The bulk of the narrative (chapters 2 to 5) focuses on Morrison's lengthy tenure as Bishop of Antigonish; a period that coincided with tumultuous global events including two World Wars and the rise of communism, important developments in the Catholic Church, and the emergence and workings of the Antigonish Movement. Nevertheless, he also traces Morrison's life from his birth and early childhood in PEI, which was painfully marked by the loss of his mother in childbirth when he was six years old, through his life as a young man, as a student in Rome, and his ministry as a priest in PEI. These formative years established the foundations of Morrison's character, beliefs, and worldview, while also exposing him to the critical challenges facing the Church during the time, including animosities based along ethnic lines, in the Maritimes, Canada, and worldwide. By the time he left PEI to assume the role of Bishop of Antigonish, Morrison was an erudite, serious, and pragmatic cleric. Chapter 2 describes Morrison's early years as Bishop of Antigonish. His appointment as Bishop is one of an 'outsider' in the face of severe divisions that existed within the Antigonish Diocese. Ludlow describes Morrison's journey of fitting into his new role as bishop and new environment of Eastern Nova Scotia. As a Church Administrator, Morrison exhibited characteristics of a 'workaholic' who adopted an approach guided by professionalism, diplomacy, and political neutrality. His dedication to meeting the needs of rural and industrial workers and immigrants and his commitment to schools and education were consistent with Father [End Page 584]Tompkins' concerns with socioeconomic plight of...

Discovering the end of time. Irish Evangelicals in the age of Daniel O'Connell. By Donald Harman Akenson . Pp. xiii + 538 incl. 17 ills and 5 maps. Montreal & Kingston: McGill–Queen's University Press, 2016. £29.99. 978 0 7735 4679 0 - Religion and greater Ireland. Christianity and Irish global networks, 1750–1950. Edited by Colin Barr and Hilary M. Carey

Discovering the end of time. Irish Evangelicals in the age of Daniel O'Connell. By Donald Harman Akenson . Pp. xiii + 538 incl. 17 ills and 5 maps. Montreal & Kingston: McGill–Queen's University Press, 2016. £29.99. 978 0 7735 4679 0 - Religion and greater Ireland. Christianity and Irish global networks, 1750–1950. Edited by Colin Barr and Hilary M. Carey . (McGill–Queen's Studies in the History of Religion.) Pp. xiii + 456 incl. 1 fig. Montreal & Kingston: McGill–Queen's University Press, 2016. £28.99 (paper). 978 0 7735 4569 4 - Volume 68 Issue 3

Political Exiles and Ministerial Migrants: Rethinking the Origins of Irish America

Political Exiles and Ministerial Migrants:Rethinking the Origins of Irish America Peter E. Gilmore (bio) David Brundage. Irish Nationalists in America: The Politics of Exile, 1798–1998. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. viii + 288 pp. Figures, notes, bibliography, and index. $34.95. Rankin Sherling. The Invisible Irish: Finding Protestants in the Nineteenth-Century Migrations to America. Montreal: McGill–Queen's University Press, 2016. xv + 350 pp. Figures, notes, bibliography, and index. $34.95. The recent publication of two studies of distinctively different (and yet overlapping) movements of Irish immigrants is a useful reminder that the migration of some seven million people from Ireland to North America over the course of nearly four centuries was large enough and sufficiently meaningful for continued investigation. To understand this substantial population movement requires close study of the impact on both the home country and the receiving country, and of the transatlantic movement of ideas, values, and organizations. These books by David Brundage and Rankin Sherling not only equip us to understand these topics, but they also require us to reevaluate assumptions about migration and identity. David Brundage investigates Irish nationalism as mediated by immigration, developing Lord Acton's axiom that "exile is the nursery of nationalism." But he wisely cautions against static or stereotypical interpretations that privilege ideas of an essential Irish identity. Instead, he proposes that nationalism was "throughout its history an ongoing work of political imagination and discursive invention" (p. 4). Strategies for national independence were created—and implemented—through transatlantic networks arising from the experience of migration. Brundage analyzes nationalism from 1798 to 1998, delineating and explaining its sometimes parallel and usually hostile strands: physical-force republicanism and constitutional separatism. Most often the two waxed and waned in turn, affected by (and affecting) conditions in the United States and in Ireland. He also helpfully assesses nationalists' attitudes and actions with respect to gender, race, and class. [End Page 423] Irish Nationalism in America is not a study of migration as such. But to explain the politics of exile, Brundage builds successfully on a generation of scholarship—including, but by no means limited to, Kerby A. Miller's magisterial Emigrants and Exiles (1985) and other productions—to create a motion picture of migration and diaspora in construction. Brundage portrays embittered exiles longing for Ireland, joined with immigrants and their children in a nationalist project with sometimes-unforeseen impacts on original and host nations. Appropriately, Brundage begins his study with the turbulent 1790s and the emergence of a revolutionary republican nationalism. The central and emblematic figure in the opening chapter is Theobald Wolfe Tone, a founder and leader of the Society of United Irishmen. The Protestant romantic metamorphosed "from failed lawyer and aspiring Whig politician to dedicated propagandist for a nonsectarian Irish nationalism"—and then to determined republican separatist (p. 12). Like many other Irish radicals before and after the failed 1798 Rebellion, Tone sought refuge (albeit briefly) in the United States. Anticipating revolutionary nationalists of succeeding generations, Tone intensely disliked the reality of U.S. politics and life. "Tone's time in America, marked by a deep sense of displacement and longing," writes Brundage, "intensified his embrace of a specifically Irish national identity and of Irish nationalism. As an exile, he could never be at home" (p. 23). After five months, Tone re-crossed the Atlantic to France, eventually returning to Ireland and his death. From 1783 to 1819, when immigration from Ireland more than doubled that from England, Scotland, and Wales combined, exiled revolutionaries figured prominently among the nearly 200,000 Irish immigrants. The transatlantic movement of radicals significantly affected U.S. politics, as the United Irishmen and their sympathizers firmly aligned themselves with the Democratic-Republican Party. The Adams administration, predictably, sought to block the arrival of those Secretary of State William Pickering condemned as "United Irish Desperadoes." Here Brundage admirably expands on the work of David A. Wilson's United Irishmen, United States (1998), Michael Durey's Transatlantic Radicals and the Early Republic (1997), and Richard J. Twomey's Jacobins and Jeffersonians (1989), among others, making good use of primary sources to convey a sense of the extensive networks and political currents among the exiles. The early nineteenth...

A World of Paper: Louis XIV, Colbert de Torcy, and the Rise of the Information State. By John C.Rule and Ben S.Trotter. McGill Queen's University Press. 2014. xvii + 829pp. $49.95/£35.00.

A World of Paper: Louis XIV, Colbert de Torcy, and the Rise of the Information State. By John C.Rule and Ben S.Trotter. McGill Queen's University Press. 2014. xvii + 829pp. $49.95/£35.00.

Graeme Morton and David A. Wilson, eds. Irish and Scottish Encounters with Indigenous Peoples: Canada, the United States, New Zealand, and Australia. Montreal: McGill–Queen's University Press, 2013. Pp. 409. $34.95 (paper).

Graeme Morton and David A. Wilson, eds. Irish and Scottish Encounters with Indigenous Peoples: Canada, the United States, New Zealand, and Australia. Montreal: McGill–Queen's University Press, 2013. Pp. 409. $34.95 (paper). - Volume 53 Issue 3

Hockey in the Canadian Imagination: Three Books on Hockey in Literature, Culture, and History

Hockey in Canadian Imagination: Three Books on Hockey in Literature, Culture, and History Canada's Game: Hockey and Identity. Ed. Andrew C. Holman. Montreal: McGill- Queen's University Press, 2009. 236 pp. $24.95 (paper) ISBN 978-0-77353-598-5. Canadian Hockey Literature. By Jason Blake. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010. 228 pp. $60.00 (cloth) ISBN 978-0-80209-984-6. $27.95 (paper) ISBN 978-0-80209-713-2. Now Is Winter: Thinking about Hockey. Ed. Jamie Dopp and Richard Harrison. Hamilton: Wolsak and Wynn, 2009. 140 pp. $25.00 (paper) ISBN 978-1- 894987-34-9. Three recently published books on hockey in literature, culture, and history show that hockey has finally entered into academia as a subject worthy of study. It is about time: hockey has been consistently invoked as a symbol of nation arguably since its conception in late 1800s. Andrew C. Holman's edited collection of essays, Canada's Game: Hockey and Identity (2009), Jamie Dopp and Richard Harrison's edited collection of essays, Now Is Winter: Thinking about Hockey (2009), and Jason Blake's monograph, Canadian Hockey Literature (2010), all engage in rigorous academic analyses of hockey and delineate hockey's complex and troubled relationship with nation. The editors and authors of these books clearly have a passion for sport, but studies not merely celebratory. The diversity of topics in these books is admirable, as is decidedly interdisciplinary nature of two edited collections. While topics range from women's shinny in Toronto parks, to representations of First Nations in hockey media, to fans' responses to trades, three themes emerge as prominent. First, hockey is mythologized, idealized, and imagined as intimately intertwined with Canadian nationalism. Second, representations of hockey embedded in often problematic cultural and historical understandings of gender and race. Third, hockey is understood as being in peril, lost or in process of being lost to corporate America, commercialization, economic interests, and spectacle. Anxiety over this perceived loss is coupled with a longing to regain a mythic past, a nostalgia for what once was-children skating on open ponds, a joining of in what Blake calls the play spirit (2010, 177). Holman's Canada's Game includes essays from scholars in fields as diverse as history, kinesiology, sport management, English, and communications. The book is divided into three parts: first part questions hockey's relationship to regional and national identities, with a historical and cultural studies focus; second part addresses hockey in relation to English-Canadian literature; and third part considers hockey as a commodity, something to be sold and bought, consumed and internalized (2009, 7). The structure of book leaves reader with a comprehensive understanding of various representations of sport: book addresses hockey from different disciplinary angles, and is not narrow or limited in scope. In his introduction, Holman explains that we must not just watch game of hockey, but read it: And to read it, scholars need to understand sport as a text that contains many narrative possibilities (6). The book explains how hockey provide meaningful and useful texts for understanding who we [Canadians] are (7), but also that it can be read in ways that make us uncomfortable, challenging us to view it anew. That hockey is intertwined with Canada as an imagined nation is clear in essays in Canada's Game. In Big Liners and Beer Gardens, for example, Greg Gillespie implies that myth of small town was central to how hockey was understood in 1936 Canada. As Gillespie explains, team that represented Canada in Olympics that year was Bear Cats, from Port Arthur, Ontario-a team that reflected community's values and small-town identity (2009, 13). With team went aspirations of a Northern Ontario community (13). …

Kenichi Matsui Native Peoples and Water Rights: Irrigation, Dams and the Law in Western Canada. Montreal & Kingston: McGill–Queen's University Press, 2009, 243 p.

Kenichi Matsui Native Peoples and Water Rights: Irrigation, Dams and the Law in Western Canada. Montreal & Kingston: McGill–Queen's University Press, 2009, 243 p.

Book reviewPHOENIX. The Life of Norman Bethune. by Roderick and Sharon Stewart. McGill & Queen's University Press, Montreal and Kingston, London, Ithaca, 2011.

Book reviewPHOENIX. The Life of Norman Bethune. by Roderick and Sharon Stewart. McGill & Queen's University Press, Montreal and Kingston, London, Ithaca, 2011.

Why the US–India Nuclear Accord is a Good Deal

The March 2006 US–India nuclear accord, which calls for India to separate its civilian and military nuclear facilities and put the majority of its reactors under international safeguards in exchang...

Rockefeller, Carnegie and Canada: American Philanthropy and the Arts and Letters in Canada (review)

Reviewed by: Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Canada: American Philanthropy and the Arts and Letters in Canada Andrew Horrall Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Canada: American Philanthropy and the Arts and Letters in Canada. Jeffrey D. Brison. Montreal and Kingston: McGill Queen's University Press, 2005. Pp. 264, $75 Jeffrey Brison's Rockefeller, Carnegie and Canada is an important addi- tion to a growing body of work that explores what Maria Tippet once described memorably as the 'walking sticks' of early twentieth-century Canadian culture. Brison takes a broad view, examining the two most important props for Canadian culture and scholarship in the first half of the twentieth century. In examining how individuals and institutions interacted with the Rockefeller and Carnegie foundations during the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, Brison challenges what he sees as a nationalistic 'creationist myth' that positions the Massey Commission as Canada's cultural watershed. This book, which is a revision of Brison's PhD thesis, and, the introduction of the book still resembles a thesis in the way the author positions his argument against those of earlier scholars and lays out a chapter-by-chapter map of his argument. While this is one of the objects of a scholarly dissertation, it has a tendency to slow down the published work. But this is a minor point, because the narrative pace soon quickens and the prose throughout is fluid and engaging. Brison has drawn extensively on underused sources in the Rockefeller and Carnegie archives to argue that pre–Massey Canadian culture was not a simple struggle between elite and popular culture, or resistance to the perception of growing American dominance. The many characters from both sides of the border who appear in Brison's work are well drawn in what is largely a story about the interaction of individuals. The nineteenth-century American industrialists Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller were two of the world's richest men when they established individual charitable foundations at the start of the twentieth century. The self-made Scottish immigrant Carnegie believed that a wealthy man should devote his fortune to fostering good in the community, [End Page 685] while the devout Rockefeller saw his financial success as a sign of divine blessing. Carnegie began giving money to an almost whimsical collection of causes including libraries and churches that appealed to him personally, while Rockefeller favoured universities, hospitals, and scientific research. Little of this funding was directed strategically or sustained until the end of the First World War, when trustees were appointed and professional corporate structures put in place at both foundations. Under these new regimes, systematic funding programs were developed and both foundations shifted their focus gradually towards cultural projects. As part of this professionalization, the foundations tried to develop coherent North American strategies. In Canada this meant identifying and endowing 'centres of excellence.' Some of the biggest beneficiaries of these schemes included institutions with countrywide aspirations like the perennially impoverished Ottawa-centric National Gallery, which was transformed into the country's cultural hub by Carnegie money in the 1930s. Others, like Dalhousie University, were singled out as regional centres, to the detriment of nearby institutions. And whole departments were built around outstanding individual scholars like Toronto's Harold Innis and Laval's George-Henri Levesque. At the same time, Brison amply shows that these men and institutions resisted the foundations' desires to manage their Canadian programs as though the country were a smaller reflection of the United States. One great strength of this work is the way Brison frames the story as a continuous series of negotiations between and within the two foundations and Canadian clients. He is conscious of the greater cultural and historical contexts, so that the influence of any one individual is never overstated. What emerges is a story of neither American dominance nor reactionary Canadian cultural nationalism. It is a much more nuanced interplay of the public and private agendas of men and institutions motivated by varying combinations of opportunism, cupidity, pragmatism, and passionate belief in the projects for which they were seeking support. The stakes were high because successfully wooing the trustees might transform an individual or institution into one of the nation's most important and powerful...

Canada's Francophone Minority Communities: Constitutional Renewal and the Winning of School Governance

Canada's Francophone Minority Communities: Constitutional Renewal and the Winning of School Governance, Michael D. Behiels, Montreal and Kingston: McGill Queen's University Press, 2004, pp. xxx, 442.Michael Behiels very straightforwardly sets out the purpose of his book in the very first sentence: “This study is a descriptive analysis of Canada's francophone minority communities' quest for renewal and regeneration through constitutional reform and the winning of school governance” (xxi). Behiels bases his study on archived material from a number of francophone groups, government documents, court decisions, interviews with five francophone activists, and a large number of secondary sources.

Constitutional Origins, Structure, and Change in Federal Countries, edited by John Kincaid and G. Alan Tarr. Montreal and Kingston: McGill Queen's University Press, 2005, 468 pp., $85 paper.

Constitutional Origins, Structure, and Change in Federal Countries, edited by John Kincaid and G. Alan Tarr. Montreal and Kingston: McGill Queen's University Press, 2005, 468 pp., $85 paper.

FINANCE AND WELFARE: THE IMPACT OF TWO WORLD WARS ON DOMESTIC POLICY IN FRANCE

Fathers, families, and the state in France, 1914–1945. By Kristen Stromberg Childers. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2003. Pp. 261. ISBN 0-8014-4122-6. £23.95.Origins of the French welfare state: the struggle for social reform in France, 1914–1947. By Paul V. Dutton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp. 251. ISBN 0-521-81334-4. £49.99.Britain, France, and the financing of the First World War. By Martin Horn. Montreal and Kingston: McGill – Queen's University Press, 2002. Pp. 249. ISBN 0-7735-2293-X. £65.00.The gold standard illusion: France, the Bank of France and the International Gold Standard, 1914–1939. By Kenneth Mouré. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Pp. 297. ISBN 0-19-924904-0. £40.00.Workers' participation in post-Liberation France. By Adam Steinhouse. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2001. Pp. 245. ISBN 0-7391-0282-6. $70.00 (hb). ISBN 0-7391-0283-4. $24.95 (pbk).In the traditional historiography of twentieth-century France the period after the Second World War is usually contrasted favourably with that after 1918. After 1945, new men with new ideas, born out of the shock of defeat in 1940 and resistance to Nazi occupation, laid the basis for an economic and social democracy. The welfare state was created, women were given full voting rights, and French security, in both economic and territorial respects, was partially guaranteed by integrating West Germany into a new supranational institutional structure in Western Europe. 1945 was to mark the beginning of the ‘30 glorious years’ of peace and prosperity enjoyed by an expanding population in France. In sharp contrast, the years after 1918 are characterized as a period dominated by France's failed attempts to restore its status as a great power. Policies based on making the German taxpayer finance France's restoration are blamed for contributing to the great depression after 1929 and the rise of Hitler. However, as more research is carried out into the social and economic reconstruction of France after both world wars, it is becoming clear that the basis of what was to become the welfare state after 1945 was laid in the aftermath of the First World War. On the other hand, new reforms adopted in 1945 which did not build on interwar policies, such as those designed to give workers a voice in decision-making at the workplace, proved to be short-lived.

Canada's Francophone Minority Communities: Constitutional Renewal and the Winning of School Governance

Canada's Francophone Minority Communities: Constitutional Renewal and the Winning of School Governance, Michael D. Behiels, Montreal and Kingston: McGill Queen's University Press, 2004, pp. 442.Michael Behiels straightforwardly sets out the purpose of his book in the very first sentence: “This study is a descriptive analysis of Canada's francophone minority communities' quest for renewal and regeneration through constitutional reform and the winning of school governance” (xxi). Behiels bases his study on archived material from a number of francophone groups, government documents, court decisions, interviews with five francophone activists, and a large number of secondary sources.

Island Doctor: John Mackieson and Medicine in Nineteenth-Century Prince Edward Island (review)

Reviewed by: Island Doctor: John Mackieson and Medicine in Nineteenth-Century Prince Edward Island Paul Berman Island Doctor: John Mackieson and Medicine in Nineteenth-Century Prince Edward Island. David A.E. Shepard. Montreal and Kingston: McGill Queen's University Press, 2003. Pp. 208, illus. $44.95 John Mackieson was born in Scotland in 1785 and graduated from the University of Glasgow with a degree in medicine in 1815. He arrived in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, in 1821 and remained there until his death in 1885. He wrote two case books; a 'Code of Medical Experience' also known as the 'Codex,' and a formulary, and he kept a personal diary. The first casebook, 'Sketches of Medical and Surgical Cases,' covers the period 1826 to 1858 and contains 257 case histories on general medical, surgical, and obstetrical subjects, which illustrate Mackieson's caring and compassionate nature as well as the difficulties of practising medicine in the mid-nineteenth century. The second casebook details the diagnosis and treatment of 115 mental patients between 1868 and 1874 when Mackieson was medical superintendent of the Charlottetown Lunatic Asylum. The three remaining texts are the 'Code of Medical Experience' or 'Codex,' a formulary, and the diary. The 'Codex,' eighty-five pages in length, summarizes many local clinical issues and displays Mackieson's intellectual pursuits, noting the various journals and medical texts he read to keep up to date. The formulary lists fifty-nine classes of therapeutic agents and thousands of prescriptions accumulated from various authorities. The diary, which extends from 1847 to 1885, contains little information about his daily life, confining itself to weather, temperature, and a few political and social events. This magnificent collection is a rare find in rural nineteenth-century medical practice. Most historians in the field are lucky to discover a daybook (not in this collection), which may list patient names, diagnosis or procedure, and fee charged or collected. Casebooks do not give much detail; probate records may yield estate finances and in rare instances the actual texts in a medical library. Formularies list various concoctions, and a diary gives information similar to that found in Mackieson's. Sometimes letters and writings of spouses or acquaintances give insights into a practice. But to find all of these primary materials for one particular individual are what makes this collection so unusual. [End Page 159] Shepard not only provides the positive aspects of Mackieson's practice, but details two major episodes that marred his professional life: the Lady Constable affair in 1847 and the 'indictment' of 1874. In 1847 the Lady Constable arrived with an epidemic of typhus on board. Mackieson, who was a member of the central board of health, did not properly quarantine the patients. He was reprimanded for his actions, but no official charges were brought against him. However, in 1874 as administrator of the Charlottetown Insane Asylum, he was indicted for neglecting his patients. The inmates were found living in squalid conditions. Twenty years earlier, when he first arrived at the asylum, he had advocated reforms to improve patient health and welfare, but they failed to materialize because of outside political and economic pressures. In the Lady Constable affair, misdiagnosis of typhus as measles, as well as communication lapses, led to the improper response and placed the general population of Charlottetown at risk. Mackieson was not entirely culpable, but he did play a prominent role. The 1874 case is more daunting, and Shepard admits that he cannot provide comfortable answers for the doctor's behaviour. One wonders if the diary could have provided insights into Mackieson's state of mind in 1874. David Shepard is the perfect individual to examine the Mackieson manuscript collection. He is not only a medical historian but also a retired Charlottetown anesthesiologist knowledgeable about the town's history and that of Prince Edward Island as well as Canadian politics and medical practice in Canada. The book is well organized, and an easy read. The footnotes are a gold mine of information as is the list of secondary sources. Island Doctor is an important contribution to the growing literature of rural medical practice in mid-nineteenth-century medicine. Paul Berman University of Massachusetts School of Medicine...