Vingts ans après Habitants et marchands Twenty Years Later: Lectures de l'histoire des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles canadiens, Reading the History of Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Canada ed. by Sylvie Dépatie et al (review)

372 letters in canada 1999 is little doubt that if proper legal standards had been met, Grandier could not have been burnt at the stake. All in all, this is a well-written and exciting account of an extraordinary story. It would have been stronger with a bit more attention to recent developments in the field, but is still a good addition to the study of witchcraft and politics in early modern Europe that will appeal to general readers as well as scholars. (JONATHAN PEARL) Sylvie Dépatie, Catherine Desbarats, Danielle Gauvreau, Mario Lalancette, and Thomas Wien, editors. Vingts ans après Habitants et marchands Twenty Years Later: Lectures de l'histoire des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles canadiens, Reading the History of Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Canada McGill-Queen's University Press 1998. x, 300. $60.00 One illustration of the epistemological transformation of historical research during the second half of the twentieth century involves the highest praise that can be given to a new book. Until the 1960s, the zenith of accolade was description as the `definitive study.' A book considered to have unequivocally answered the key questions posed by a certain historical topic would win prizes and awards, and be placed on the reading list of graduate courses as an addition to the required reading for entry into the profession. More generally, professors would quietly breathe a sigh of relief that one more topic could be covered in their lectures without the expectation of further revision, thereby adding to their treasured dog-eared, yellowed foolscap brought to the lectern annually. In contrast, the most important studies of the later twentieth century came to be seen as those that opened up new fields of research, posed new questions, or developed new methodologies often based on new concepts or previously unused primary sources. Rather than seeking to end a historical debate by making further research unnecessary, the most highly praised books became points of departure for subsequent studies within a new debate. In a research world seeking better questions rather than definitive answers, the key books are now seen to stimulate further research rather than to make it seem unnecessary. This epistemological transformation explains why Louise Dechêne's Habitants et marchands de Montréal au XVIIe siècle is considered one of Canada's most important books in recent decades. Unfortunately, Dech êne's work is not well known outside Quebec, partly because an English-language translation was not published until 1992, and partly because its author has not been familiar on the conference circuit, especially in the United States. For this reason, Twenty Years Later is valuable, since it includes an examination of her own work and examples of the studies it inspired as well as an appendix with Dechêne's list of humanities 373 publications. A short foreword is presented in both French and English, followed by four chapters in English and eight in French. After a substantial introduction by Thomas Wien, part 1 offers three historiographical overviews of research from the mid-1970s to the mid1990s on three of the four main sections of Dechêne's book: population (by Danielle Gauvreau); trade (by Dale Miquelon); and agriculture (by Louis Michel). Subsequent research related to the fourth section on `society' in Habitants et marchands is examined by Wien in the introduction. Part 2 includes eight essays that illustrate current research priorities and methodologies. Four chapters illustrate the new focus on aboriginal history (by William C. Wicken, Bruce M. White, Allan Greer, and Wien) while three chapters address economic questions (by Catherine Desbarats, Sylvie Dépatie, and Mario Lalancette with Alan M. Stewart) and one chapter examines marriage contracts in a rural area (by Geneviève Postolec). Taken together, the chapters of this fine collection emphasize the enormous contribution of Louise Dechêne to our understanding of the importance of context, the value of systematic study of routinely generated sources, and of examining both the history of `famous' and the `anonymous .' At the same time, the chapters also reveal how researchers are now focusing on the challenge of understanding interrelationships, of probing the interconnectedness of historical processes. Unlike Dechêne, who perceived distinct worlds of...