Cape Bretoniana: An Annotated Bibliography (review)

An earlier edition of this bibliography was published by the Nova Scotia Department of Education in 1978. That one was a slim mimeographed publication of 114 pages listing 1352 individual items. A generation later we have a doorstopper of a book from a major university press, evidence of the considerable activity in and recognition of Cape Breton studies since the time of the first edition. The list begins under 'General,' with references from the remarkable local oral history publication established by Ron Caplan in the 1970s, Cape Breton's Magazine, and concludes under 'Genealogy' at item 6221 with a reference to an Arichat cemetery survey from the Nova Scotia Genealogist. The territory in between is organized in an additional nine sections, several of them referring to successive eras in Island history ('Early History,' 'French Regime,' 'British Regime,' 'Canadian Regime') and others focusing on major themes ('Mi'kmaq,' 'Coal and Steel,' 'Local,' 'Religion,' and 'Culture'). The survey identifies a large body of local popular history, memoirs and autobiographies, government documents, magazine articles, and academic studies. The compass is broad enough to include other contributions, such as relevant chapters in larger collections, that could easily pass below the radar in these days of keyword computer searches. As the editor explains in the introduction, however, the coverage cannot be complete; for instance, a good deal of fiction and other creative writing is included, but films, records, compact discs, and videos are not. The annotations themselves are brief but helpful and again demonstrate the editor's longstanding attentiveness to the field. There are subject and author indexes as well, but the real delight of the volume is in the browsing, and even the specialist will come away with new gleanings from the harvest of materials displayed here.

This volume will be indispensable to local and regional historians, but it is also of wider interest, at least in part because from the earliest times Cape Breton history has so often represented a kind of test case, even a rehearsal, for much of the historical experience that has affected North America to the west. Even in oppressive environments and difficult times, the population have shown a remarkable capacity for maintaining a hopeful local identity based on social solidarities. Some writers have described this as a distinctive Cape Breton ethnicity based on the New World experience; others have documented a continual, multi-faceted, and not always successful struggle against dispossession and disinheritance. In either case, readers of Cape Breton history share a contemporary fascination with the history of a small community's struggle to maintain its place in the modernizing world. As Brian Tennyson puts it in his introduction, 'In a world that is becoming increasingly homogenized by the forces of so-called globalization, unique cultural identities like that of Cape Breton need to be not only recognized but preserved and even nurtured. The world needs Cape Breton and other places like it.'

As in any bibliography of such large scope, the gaffes of course are to be regretted; this volume is not without them, and the editor has constructively invited readers to submit errors and omissions to the Beaton Institute of Cape Breton Studies, which assisted in the preparation and publication of the book. In that connection, it should also be noted that bibliographies have always been notoriously difficult to maintain as well as to prepare. Already at the time of publication in 2005 this one was aging, as the coverage ended several years earlier in 1998. Sooner or later the bibliography should appear in an online format that can be regularly updated. Any individual or institution taking on that responsibility will need to uphold the standards of thoughtful editorial work that are evident in the present volume.