Creating Postwar Canada: Community, Diversity, and Dissent, 1945–1975 (review)

Creating Postwar Canada: Community, Diversity, and Dissent, 1945–1975 brings together 13 studies that explore the "trente glorieuses" — the 30 years in Canadian history defined by its "extended moment of unprecedented prosperity, developed welfare states, high modernity, and advanced capitalism" (p. 2). In the introductory chapter, Magda Fahrni and Robert Rutherdale effectively make the case for the historical coherence of this period before introducing the volume, noting that they have broken it into two parts. The first deals with "imagined" postwar communities and the second with diversity and dissent.

The first half of the book is split between efforts with a geographic focus and those of a thematic nature. Joel Belliveau provides a useful survey of New Brunswick Acadian history — from autonomy to integration and partially back again — between 1950 and 1975. The process towards a liberal society began in the 1950s, accelerated in the first half of the 1960s, was called into question at the end of the 1960s, and was followed by a neo-nationalist movement that began in the later 1960s but had largely petered out by 1975. Through a reading of the pages of La Cognée, Éric Bédard hypothesizes that in Quebec there were two waves to the FLQ movement of the 1960s. The first was characterized by a millennial spirit that stressed the long-term nature of the struggle, while the second — which led to the 1970 October Crisis — was committed to spontaneous and radical action. Bédard's conclusions are intriguing; however, the author himself admits that his argument is "empirically fragile" (p. 48), and further research is necessary to substantiate his claims regarding the movement's intellectual and philosophical coherence.

Steven High provides a fascinating study of the development of "Canadian English" in the 1950s and 1960s, revealing how the publication of indigenous Canadian dictionaries was linked to identity and nationalism. In "Selling by the Carload: The Early Years of Fast Food in Canada," Steve Penfold links the development of restaurants such as McDonald's, particularly in the 1960s, to the consumer culture in Canada. Penfold indicates that this culture reflected many changing aspects of Canadian society, although a stronger conclusion would have made an excellent study even more persuasive. White women's perceptions of Eskimo women are the focus of Joan Sangster's contribution, which she elucidates by invoking travel journals and diaries (this article was an Honourable Mention for the CHA's Hilda Neatby Prize).

Robert Wright's intellectual history of Peter C. Newman explores and qualifies that prolific writer's attempts to reconcile liberalism and nationalism by chronologically examining his writings from the 1950s to the late 1960s, chiefly Flame of Power, Renegade in Power, and The Distemper of Our Times (as well as his journalistic publications). Dimitry Anastakis takes issue with the traditional conception that Canada had to choose one path of a forked road; the author argues that Canada explored three alternative economic and trade routes, multilateralism, economic nationalism, and bilateral free trade, citing the 1965 Auto Pact as a combination of all three strains of trade policy.

In the second part of the book, which employs diversity and dissent as the organizing theme, a number of the chapters use Vancouver as the geographic back-drop. Michael Dawson examines the importance of consumerism and regulation in Canadian society. His evaluation of shopping regulations in Vancouver and Victoria reveals that Cold War rhetoric was employed as a "malleable rhetorical weapon" (p. 194). Becki L. Ross, too, looks at consumerism in Vancouver, albeit of a more frowned-upon type — striptease and exotic entertainment — and she focuses on the owners of these types of establishments to engage issues of class, race, and mores. Portrayals of women in Vancouver are also the subject of Christabelle Sethna's study. She looks at how the sexual revolution played out in the 1960s on the pages of the The Ubyssey (the University of British Columbia's student newspaper). For much of the 1960s...