Les jeunes à l’ere de la mondialisation: Quête identitaire et conscience historique ed. by Bogumil Jewsiewicki, Jocelyn Létourneau, and: Identités en mutation: Socialités en germination ed. by Bogumil Jewsiewicki, Jocelyn Létourneau (review)

706 The Canadian Historical Review non les « missions» de Mgr Forbin-Janson en 1840 « ne sont pas le moteur OU le declencheur, mais un element parmi d'autres ». L'historien de l'Universite du Quebec ·a Trois-Rivieres fait commencer ce « renouveau » religieux clans la decennie 1820 et en prend pour indices !'amelioration des relations de l'Eglise catholique avec le pouvoir britannique, la fondation de seminaires-colleges, la vigilance ecclesiastique en matiere de systeme d'instruction publique, le recrutement des confreries et le recours aux tribunaux, « signe tangible de la volonte et de la capacite d'inculquer ses regles ». Ce debat sur le sens du « reveil » religieux de 1840 a l'avantage d'inciter les historiens du religieux a prendre position, a preciser les arguments et les methodes et a elever le debat a des considerations theoriques. na peut-etre le desavantage du desequilibre des donnees et des recherches sur la periode anterieure a1840. A part l'etude d'Hardy sur Notre-Dame de Quebec et celle de Rousseau sur la predication des Sulpiciens aMontreal, qui couvrent en partie ou en totalite la decennie 1830, on a !'impression que le debat aura un autre avantage: stimuler la recherche sur la pratique religieuse avant 1840, que ce soit sur la signification de la volonte de restauration autour de Lamennais et de Chateaubriand ou sur la dimension religieuse de la mouvance Patriote et des rebellions memes. YVAN LAMONDE Universite McGill Lesjeunes al'ere de la mondialisation: Quete identitaire et conscience historique . Sous la direction de BOGUMIL JEWSIEWICKI et JOCELYN LETOURNEAU. Sillery: Septentrion 1998. Pp. 436, $29.95 Identites en mutation: Socialites en germination. Sous la direction de BOGUMIL JEWSIEWICKI et JOCELYN LETOURNEAU. Sillery: Septentrion 1998. Pp. 232· $19.95 These two collected works issue from a large-scale comparative research project undertaken by Laval University historians Jocelyn Letourneau and Bogumil Jewsiewicki on youth, identity, and the reconfiguration of the postmodern world. The first, and more interesting, volume from a historian's perspective, contains fifteen analyses of questionnaires administered in 1994-6 to high school students in Quebec, Burundi, the Congo, Poland, Russia, Belgium, and France. Students were asked to answer the following questions: 'What do you remember about your country, your region, your city?' and 'What, according to you, should one remember?' The aim was to probe the process by which young people construct their historical identity. The authors' network of scholarly connections determined the choice ofcountries surveyed. Book Reviews 707 The results offer some fascinating and, in the case of the African responses, painful reading. The four studies done in Canada (young French-speaking and English-speaking Montrealers, others from immigrant families, students from the Gaspe and northern New Brunswick, and a small sample ofchildren of Polish immigrants in Montreal) show the 'work of identity' to be conditioned, as expected, by the youngster's family and school situation and to result in a weaving of personal, regional, and cultural referents that produces tapestries of varying patterns. For the children of immigrants, national identity is mainly defined by their image oftheir parents' homeland; the history ofQuebec or of Canada is something for which they have little feeling. Students from the Gaspe region manifest a strong sense of regional identity, intermingled with 'national' and North American cultural referents. In each case, national identity and historical consciousness are largely built on implicit or explicit comparisons with some 'other.' Local and regional identification also vie with national referents among students in Poland and Russia. There, the work ofconstructing historical identity builds on the awareness ofancient origins, on the need to construct meaning for the communist era, and on a sense ofpersonal participation in recent 'historical' events such as the 'state of war' imposed in Poland in 1981 or the Russian putsch of 1991. By contrast, Belgian students are reluctant to express a strong attachment to the historical roots oftheir country, while French students exhibit a critical stance towards the traditional narrative of French history, which provides no room for acknowledging the historical presence of emigre minorities. The African students' answers to the surveywould be incomprehensible without some understanding ofthe recent history ofBurundi and the Congo. These students' families often had to cope with the...