Canada and the British Empire (review)

In his 1993 presidential address to the Canadian Historical Association, Phillip Buckner criticized the separation between Canada and British Empire in recent history-writing. As Buckner explained, the separation had grown since the 1960s when Canadianists took a decidedly nation-based approach to their research, while historians of Empire became decidedly uninterested in the "White Dominions" of the Empire. Canada and the British Empire is Buckner's latest attempt to reintroduce the British Empire to Canadian history, thereby mending this historiographical divergence. Focusing on the role of Empire in Canada, and especially attitudes in Canada toward "Britishness," the important thread running through these chapters is this: until the 1970s, British North American (and later "Canadian") society was characterized by a dual loyalty to (and sometime tension between) the British Empire and Canada. The implication of this dual loyalty, argue the authors in this volume, is that the story of Canada must not be separated from its identification with, and position in, the British imperial project.

The volume's 14 chapters are divided into two sections. The first six chapters provide a chronological narrative of the relationship between the Empire and British North America up to the 1960s. This is the strongest section of the book. The first chapter by John Reid and Elizabeth Mancke on the pre-1780s period makes a particularly interesting argument that connects Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and Rupert's Land to a single process of commerce-led settlement. Other chapters in this opening section explain how the dual loyalty to Britain and Canada was a constant theme from the 1830s rebellions through to the 1980s. The United States casts a large shadow in each of these chapters; as John Thompson notes, the United States was Canada's "Other" and a reason to retain its connection to Britain. The second half of the book is comprised of thematic chapters covering the Empire as it related to Newfoundland, migration, Aboriginal peoples, French-speaking Canada, women, economy, and law. Two themes animate this section: the fact that "Britishness" remained important in Canadian society until at least the 1960s, and the suggestion that the Empire appears somewhat de-centred when viewed from the perspective of Canada. As with any project as ambitious as this, there are important themes that deserved more sustained attention. Although discussed briefly in some essays, full chapters on religion, environment, class and status, military service, masculinity, and intercolonial relations should have been included in this volume. Many readers will also be frustrated by the volume's tendency to focus on the perspectives of elite men and women in central and eastern Canada. At times, one is left wanting more about how the everyday lives of people from the North and the West, and in the fur trade, the factories, and the military, interacted with Empire.

The central strength and weakness of this book is its focus on the role of "Britishness" to the development of Canada between 1815 and 1960. Some chapters use this idea of "Britishness" and the dual British/Canadian loyalties to make fresh interpretations of established periods and themes. Buckner's chapters highlight how Canadian nationalism and "imperial enthusiasm" rose after Confederation in 1867; Thompson explains how Canada expressed "imperial sentiments" even as it became more independent of Britain in the 1930s, while Adele Perry notes how Canadian feminism was linked to high imperial sentiments through organizations like the Imperial Order Daughters of Empire. In a particularly revealing example of dual loyalty, Philip Girard explains how Canadian legal culture was created by blending a faith in "British justice" and made-in-Canada solutions to legal issues.

Unfortunately, the links between "Britishness" and Canada are not always so clearly articulated. J. M. Bumsted's chapter on the years immediately before Confederation could have been written without reference to the Empire, while the chapters on migration recognize that migrants came from Britain, but not what "Britain" meant to them and how they undertook the complex task of articulating their identities as "British" or "Canadian." While these...