Revisiting 1759: The Conquest of Canada in Historical Perspective ed. by Phillip Buckner and John G. Reid, and: Remembering 1759: The Conquest of Canada in Historical Memory ed. by Phillip Buckner and John G. Reid (review)

It is not self-evident that there is a pressing need in this country for 564 more pages of text and endnotes on the Conquest of 1759–60. That said, these two volumes demonstrate that the well is far from dry. The message is compellingly conveyed by the medium, a collection of well-written, concise contributions that emerged from a conference held at the University of London in 2009. The editors are quite right to laud copy editor Barry Norris, who has indeed done an excellent job. The articles are well written, and each contains a clear, concise argument that is easily grasped by the reader. Canadian history professors will find much of use in both volumes for undergraduate and graduate students, either as full volumes or as individual articles.

Not surprisingly, a number of articles focus on the capture of Quebec itself and the debate concerning the impact of the Conquest on British attempts to deal with an overwhelmingly Catholic population in the period leading up to the Quebec Act of 1774. Barry Moody’s piece on the impact of the Conquest on Nova Scotia is a welcome addition, as is Matthew Dziennik’s contribution on the place and perception of the Highland soldier in the British Empire. Thomas Peace’s contribution on the Huron-Wendat response to the Conquest brings Aboriginal people into focus, but some readers may wonder whether articles dealing with the impact on the Algonquin and Iroquois might have given the collection greater impact and thematic cohesion.

The copy-editing of the two volumes in terms of grammar and syntax is exemplary, but there are some problems. In Revisiting 1759 the editors start the War of the Austrian Succession in 1744, while Stephen Conway has it beginning in 1740. Dziennik argues that Conway claims that after the Conquest the British adopted the Irish model to administer Quebec, when in fact Conway argues that the British ended up settling on the model of Minorca. The only real howler is the claim in the first sentence of the preface that the Battle of the Plains of Abraham took place on 14 September 1759, while the first sentence of the introduction correctly places it on 13 September 1759.

Donald Fyson argues that much less attention has been paid to the Conquest in recent years than in the 1960s and 1970s, while Alexis Lachaine points to a straw man, arguing that in the 1960s the Rebellions of 1837–38 held more meaning for Québécois nationalists than the Conquest did. Lachaine disputes Fyson’s claim, insightfully pointing out that the Conquest has become more relevant since the referendum defeats of 1980 and 1995, because they reinforced the nationalist imaginary of the Québécois as a defeated people. Jocelyn Létourneau’s analysis confirms that of Lachaine, arguing that early-twenty-first-century attempts to downplay the Conquest in the Quebec school curriculum produced a widespread “outcry” of opposition. The centrality of the Conquest is reinforced by Brian Young’s convincing argument that the enormously influential work of Denis Vaugeois and Jacques LaCoursière has reinforced the importance of the Conquest to the cohesion of the Québécois identity.

As Michel Ducharme points out, memory is more about the present and the future than about the past. One of the great strengths of these two volumes is that their very separation evokes the fundamental problem; it is hard to learn from revisiting the past when remembering is much more about identity than it is about evidence. Ducharme’s response is pessimistic, arguing that contemporary Quebecers are unable to “use the Conquest to foster...