The Education of an Innocent: An Autobiography by E.R. 'Ernie' Forbes ed. by Stephen Dutcher (review)

By the time I reached graduate school in 2002, much of E.R. 'Ernie' Forbes's work had been in print for some twenty-plus years, and yet to me (and others) it seemed fresh and compelling. At some point, every student interested in the history of Atlantic Canada discovers Ernie Forbes, and typically it has a major influence on their interpretations of the region's history. His name appears often on course syllabi, and it would be nearly impossible for an undergraduate studying history in the Maritimes to graduate without having read at least one of his monographs. As Forbes amusingly recalled, when moving tenants into his Halifax, Nova Scotia, cottage, one of the students sitting on a sofa looked up and said, 'are you THE Ernie Forbes?' (p. 133).

A long-time professor of history at the University of New Brunswick, Forbes's book, Challenging the Regional Stereotype (1989), defied the deeply rooted myths that dominated the academic and popular descriptions of Atlantic Canada. Most particularly, Forbes challenged the supposed 'conservatism' of the region, which often served to illustrate that the area was 'backward', or out of touch with modernity. His seminal work, The Maritime Rights Movement, 1919-1927, was illustrative of his deep scholarship and desire to challenge acutely engrained assumptions about the Maritime provinces.

In The Education of an Innocent, edited by Forbes's former student, Stephen Dutcher, we have a publication that illustrates the softer and more personal side of this accomplished academic. The memoirs, originally written for Forbes's grandchildren, tell portions of his life story in a relaxed and casual style. Although a short book, it is full of interesting personal anecdotes and recollections that mix seamlessly with discussions of historiography and publishing. Perhaps the most poignant part of the book is Forbes's explanation of how movies such as Going Down the Road, which supplied Canada with imagery of poor and ignorant Maritimers travelling to Ontario for employment, inspired him to study the region. Although today there are journals and even a programme devoted to the study of Atlantic Canada, when Forbes wrote his Master's thesis 'The Rise and Fall of the Conser vative Party in the Provincial Politics of Nova Scotia, 1925-1933', he was one of only a handful of individuals studying the region seriously. His scholarly road was long and arduous. Once, when critiquing a paper on the 'paranoid style' of Maritime politics, Forbes stood before a conference and argued that there were 'rational' reasons for Maritimes 'to feel hard done by in Confederation', only to be ridiculed by some Toronto historians who provided 'their best anti-maritime jokes' (p. 70). Yet from these experiences, Forbes went on to publish many important articles in Acadiensis (the journal of Atlantic Canadian history) and, along with D.A. 'Del' Muise, published The Atlantic Provinces in Confederation in 1993.

Also included in the volume is a twenty-page inter view with Forbes, conducted by Professor John G. Reid, another important scholar of the region. This exchange teases out other interesting anecdotes, while providing fascinating insights into the development of regional scholarship in the 1970s and 1980s. Understandably those who are new to the historiography of Atlantic Canada will not find this book as compelling as those who know Forbes's work; however, it is nonetheless, a deeply interesting, amusing and personal portrait of a man whose work still impresses and guides students of Atlantic Canada.