ยป Where is My People’s History?
Jack and The Tyee have both criticized the latest edition of How to Be a Canadian by the Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration. It made me think about the book A People’s History of the United States (which I haven’t read and don’t plan to because I don’t care about the US). It’s a history of oppression in the US that looks at major national events and oppressive episodes from the point of view of the least powerful.
Apparently A People’s History is an invaluable teaching tool for critical American History. But from what I’ve read, none of the spin-offs (A People’s History of the World, in particular) are as good.
What do you get when you Google “A People’s History of Canada”? The historical TV series published by the government. It’s a nice project for teaching people the framework of Canadian history, but even a sometimes-rogue Crown corporation like the CBC can’t be expected to produce truly critical history.
Does a popular critical history of Canada exist? If not, why doesn’t someone make one?
There’s the “Black Book of English Canada”, or something like that. I haven’t read it, and I’m posting this from my Bold 9000, so I won’t have a lot of details or links here. It is a French Canadian book written in Canadian French; I think there is an English translation but I’m not sure. My impression is that it is a series of historical examples of how everything that English Canada has done is shit, and oppressive, racist, exclusionary, or hateful.
Update: I had the correct title. And there is an English translation.
Don
5 Mar 10 at 7:52 pm
Unlike Jack’s criticism about the removal of gay rights references, I find The Tyee’s criticisms unconvincing. I don’t agree that a guide for new citizens should be about how to join a union or about the horrible plight of women and First Nations people in Canada today. I don’t have much sympathy with a point of view that sees national recognition of the death of the last veteran of the First World War as overly “militaristic”.
Don
5 Mar 10 at 8:12 pm