The Books of My Life: Canada (Cook)

 

Though it is now almost fifty years old Canada: A Modern Study (Toronto: Irwin, Contemporary Canada: Issues and Insights series, revised and enlarged edition, 1977) by noted Canadian historian Ramsey Cook with John Saywell and John Ricker, remains an excellent brief introduction to Canadian history from the British conquest of New France to the early 1970s. Unlike the fragmented introductory textbooks that dominate the college and university textbook market these days Canada: A Modern History gives interested readers a coherent narrative thanks to its focus on political and economic history, its focus on francophone and anglophone relations in British North American and Canada, and its focus on relations between British North America and Canada and the "first new nation" the United States.

Canada: A Modern History provides readers with the highlights of Canadian political and economic history from the British conquest of New France, to the important fur and fish trade in British North America, the rebellion of1837--a rebellion that had both francophone and US dimensions--Confederation, the prime ministership of John Macdonald, Canadian expansion into the West, the prime ministership of Wilfrid Laurier, World War I, the prime ministership of William Lyon Mackenzie King, World War II, the prime ministership of Lester Pearson, and finally the prime ministership of Pierre Trudeau in the late 1960s and early 1970s. 

Cook does an excellent job of exploring the transition of Canada from a rural and agriculture economy to a modern industrial economy in which mining, timber, iron and steel were important. He does an excellent job of exploring the history of political parties in Canada, major and minor. He does an excellent job of exploring tensions between the provinces and Ottawa. He does an excellent job of exploring how a Canada that was part of the British empire became, thanks in part to its geography, an economic and cultural adjunct of another empire, the United States and the tensions that have sometimes surfaced in that relationship. He does an excellent job of exploring the tensions, tensions which ebbed and flowed over the years, between the English and French, anglophone and francophone British North America and Canada. He does an excellent job of exploring the complexities of identity in a nation that was French, British, increasingly less Anglo-Saxon after World War II, and massively impacted economically and influenced politically and culturally by the United States. He does an excellent job of exploring the roles status, class, ethnicity/race, and gender have played in British North American and Canadian history. And he does an excellent job of integrating a bit of quantitative social and  qualitative cultural history into the broader text,

Canada: A Modern Study is, of course, somewhat outdated and some may wonder whether it is worth reading some fifty years after its revised edition appeared. I would strongly argue that it is. Canada: A Modern Study provides readers who want a brief overview of British North American and Canadian history with a sound understanding of the political and economic history of British North America and Canada--an economic and political history which every student of Canada should know--and it does so in very readable and concise prose. So while we may have a more nuanced picture these days, for example, of the Loyalists who fled or were expelled from the United States (a kind of political and ideological cleansing) and who eventually made their way to Canada, Canada: A Modern Study nevertheless remains a solid introduction that provides students and interested readers with an excellent introduction to the essentials of the history of British North America and Canadian. Very highly recommended.