In nineteenth-century settler colonies such as Upper Canada, New South Wales and New Zealand, governors not only administered, they stood at the head of colonial society and ordered the festivities and ceremonies around which colonial life centred. Governors were expected to be repositories of political wisdom and constitutional lore. Governors and Settlers explores the public and private beliefs of governors such as Sir Thomas Brisbane, Sir John Colborne, Sir George Grey and Lord Elgin as they struggled to survive in colonial cultures which both deified and vilified their personal qualities.
Now available in a single volume paperback, this advanced reference resource for the novel and novel theory offers authoritative accounts of the history, terminology, and genre of the novel, in over 140 articles of 500-7,000 words. Entries explore the history and tradition of the novel in different areas of the world; formal elements of the novel (story, plot, character, narrator); technical aspects of the genre (such as realism, narrative structure and style); subgenres, including the bildungsroman and the graphic novel; theoretical problems, such as definitions of the novel; book history; and the novel's relationship to other arts and disciplines. The Encyclopedia is arranged in A-Z format and features entries from an international cast of over 140 scholars, overseen by an advisory board of 37 leading specialists in the field, making this the most authoritative reference resource available on the novel. This essential reference, now available in an easy-to-use, fully indexed single volume paperback, will be a vital addition to the libraries of literature students and scholars everywhere.
In Britain and the Origins of Canadian Confederation, 1837-1867, Ged Martin offers a sceptical review of claims that Confederation answered all the problems facing the provinces, and examines in detail British perceptions of Canada and ideas about its future. The major British contribution to the coming of Confederation is to be found not in the aftermath of the Quebec conference, where the imperial role was mainly one of bluff and exhortation, but prior to 1864, in a vague consensus among opinion-formers that the provinces would one day unite. Faced with an inescapable need to secure legislation at Westminster for a new political structure, British North American politicians found they could work within the context of a metropolitan preference for intercolonial union.
Covering a period that runs from the founding of the colony in the early seventeenth century to the conquest of 1760, People, State, and War under the French Regime in Canada is a study of colonial warriors and warfare that examines the exercise of state military power and its effects on ordinary people. Overturning the tendency to glorify the military feats of New France and exploding the rosy myth of a tax-free colonial population, Louise Dechêne challenges the stereotype of the fighting prowess and military enthusiasm of the colony’s inhabitants. She reveals the profound incidence of social divides, the hardship war created for those expected to serve, and the state’s demands on the civilian population in the form of forced labour, requisitions, and billeting of soldiers. Originally published posthumously in French, People, State, and War under the French Regime in Canada is the culmination of a lifetime of research and unparalleled knowledge of the archival record, including official correspondence, memoirs, military campaign journals, taxation records, and local parish records. Dechêne reconstructs the variegated composition and conditions of military forces in New France, which included militia, colonial volunteers, and regular troops, as well as Indigenous allies. The study offers an informed and ambitious comparison between France and other French colonies and shows that the mobilization of an unpaid, compulsory militia in New France greatly exceeded requirements in other parts of the French domain. With empathy, sensitivity to the social dimensions of life, and a piercing insight into the operations of power, Dechêne portrays the colonial condition with its rightful dose of danger and ambiguity. Her work underlines the severe toll that warfare takes on the individual and on society and the persistent deprivation, disorder, fear, and death that come with conflict.
What lay behind Charles de Gaulle's "Vive le Québec libre!" speech in Montreal on 24 July 1967, Philippe Rossillon's activities in New Brunswick, Belgium, and Africa, and the sinking of Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior in New Zealand in 1985? J.F. Bosher argues that the motivation behind all these incidents was a policy of underhanded imperial ambition on the part of France. In The Gaullist Attack on Canada, he contends that French nationalists have been at work behind the screen of harmless fraternising of international francophonie in order to stimulate French revolutionary nationalism in Quebec and elsewhere, and that the Gaullist ideology behind these attempts rests on a set of myths about past events, age-old resentment of the English-speaking nations, and a deep-rooted belief in the superiority of France, its language, and its culture. The Gaullist Attack on Canada reveals a phase of French imperialism that poses a threat to Canadian Confederation. Since the 1960s, Bosher argues, de Gaulle and his followers have conspired to stimulate Quebec separatism as part of their larger goal to revive France's role as a great power. He bases his case on the evidence of France's actions in other former French colonies, especially in Africa, as well as the writings of such leading Gaullist conspirators as Bernard Dorin, Pierre–Claude Mallen, Pierre de Menthon, and Philippe Rossillon, who have boasted about their efforts to win Quebec away from Canada for France. Bosher criticises the Canadian government for its failure to respond to, or even to recognise, the Gaullist threat. The Under–Secretary of State for External Affairs in the 1960s, Marcel Cadieux, wanted to take vigorous steps against the Gaullist mafia but was overruled by his political superiors. Bosher argues that, even now, by standing up to French aggression the government might weaken the separatist movement in Quebec, or at least turn the tide of political support for it.
