Social Studies

LETTERS IN CANADA, 1953 271 III. SOCIAL STUDIES' ALEXANDER BRADY Books in this section commonly fall into two categories: those dealing with one or other aspect of Canada and its development, and those dealing with themes unrelated to Canada. The former are inevitably the more numerous, and for this reason alone command more of the limited space available in this survey. We are also perhaps justified in giving somewhat more attention to the studies concerned with Canada, for only in the journals of this country are they likely to receive appropriate consideration. Learned books by Canadians on other lands and other themes will usually receive due assessment abroad, but here we are not ignoring their appearance, for the scholarly pursuit of subjects beyond the national boundaries is evidence of a growing maturity and vitality in Canadian social study. Three books present a general interpretation of Canadian development . In Canada: A Story of Challenge (Macmillan, xvi, 417 pp., $3.50) J. M. S. Careless attempts a history of the country from the solitary reign of the Indians to Mr. St. Laurent and 1950. This volume , based on the works of modern research, is lucid in style, unpretentious in manner, and, while designed primarily for the young, is profitable reading for those of any age. Longer and more comprehensive than the short histories by George P. de T. Glazebrook and Gerald S. Graham, published four years ago, it is still comparatively modest in compass. It ventures on no dashing novelties in interpretation , has no dogmatic thesis to defend, and will incite no heated controversy. In its sensible analysis of contending forces, it sometimes seems to minimize the role of individual personality, a fact which may explain a certain absence of human interest and colour in its smooth narrative. Different in scope and texture is Nation of the North (Methuen [British Book Service], x, 270 pp., $3.75) by D. M. LeBourdais. It is not the performance of a professional historian but of a publicist who over the last thirty-five years has dealt with many contemporary phases of Canadian life. Mr. LeBourdais has travelled widely in the northern regions and the west (he was born in the Cariboo country of British Columbia), and to his writing he brings a lively sense of geography. The plan of the history is traditional enough, since it rests on the simple and neat assumption that the Canadian story falls into three parts: from Port Royal in 1604 to the Peace of Paris in 1763, from the Peace to Confederation, and from Confederation to the present. It is this last period which most interests the author, and he *1 wish to acknowledge assistance in writing this survey kindly provided by two colleagues, Wm. C. Hood and J. N. Wolfe. 272 UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY sees it in tum fitting into a threefold division, marked successively by the ascendancy of the chief political leaders, Macdonald, Laurier, and King. In the preface he assures us that aside from Confederation the most important events in the last of his eras occurred since the First World War, a dubious claim indeed, for a reader is left wondering how it is possible to be so confident that any of these events is more important than, say, the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway or the peopling of the West. The story of national development in each period is told clearly, with a quick eye for concrete and " revealing facts. Such facts are abundant enough, from the number of schools, teachers, and pupils in the Upper Canada of 1865 to Sir Henry Thornton's salary as president of the Canadian National Railway. Since Mr. LeBourdais has long been interested in the Arctic frontier, he assigns more significance than has been customary in general histories to Arctic developments. An agreeable feature of his book is an emphasis on personalities and their place in the building of the nation. Numerous individuals, whose names are absent in the more balanced and compressed narrative of Mr. Careless, are here introduced in the context of specific developments, such as Sir Charles Saunders and wheat cultivation, Duncan Campbell Scott and verse, Walter A. Riddell and Canada at Geneva, and...