The Forked Road: Canada 1939-1957

by Donald Grant Creighton

Volume XVIII of the Canadian Centenary Series Now available as e-books for the first time, the Canadian Centenary Series is a comprehensive nineteen-volume history of the peoples and lands which form Canada. Although the series is designed as a unified whole so that no part of the story is left untold, each volume is complete in itself.Canada’s declaration of war against Germany in 1939 marked the beginning of a significant period in the history of the nation. By the end of the Liberal regime in 1957 the country had undergone immense growth in human and material resources. The experience of the Second World War had been followed by participation in the Korean War and the Cold War. The Great Depression had given way to a boom, which had continued through an exchange crisis, inflation, and minor recessions. In addition, new life had been generated in the arts. The new road Canada chose to follow led directly to a new world of planning and management, of economic controls, and social equalization. In The Forked Road, Donald Creighton sheds light on the major issues, events, and political personalities which dictated Canada’s direction since the Second World War. First published in 1976, Professor Creighton’s important contribution to the Canadian Centenary Series is available here as an e-book for the first time.

Genres: History

319 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1976

About the author

Donald Grant Creighton studied at Victoria College, University of Toronto and Balliol College, Oxford. In 1927 he was hired as a lecturer in U of T's Department of History, becoming professor in 1945, chairman 1954-59 and professor emeritus in 1971. The first of his many books, THE COMMERCIAL EMPIRE OF THE ST. LAWRENCE (1937), established him as the foremost English Canadian historian of his generation.

Under the influence of Harold INNIS, Creighton adopted as a first principle the idea of the St Lawrence as the basis of a transcontinental economic and political system: the LAURENTIAN THESIS. He was also committed to history as a literary art, and his 2-volume biography of John A. MACDONALD won the Governor General's Award (1952, 1955). As a nationalist with a centralist bias, Creighton in later years spoke out against the threats of continentalism and regionalism.

Reviews

[David Akin]

Learned a lot more about Louis St Laurent -- and, thanks to Creighton, found him a lot more interesting than I'd thought going into the book. Now want to know more about that period between King's retirement and Diefenbaker's ascension ...

[Liquidlasagna · Rating 3 out of 5]

some of the critics have been harsh on this one

International Journal
Summer 1977

Unlike is predecessor his volume contains no bibliography and its sources must be ascertained from the footnotes which refer to books and periodicals which appeared up to and including 1975.

The gaps are disturbing.

Creighton has made no use of archival material such as the Claxton papers. He has not attempted to secure oral interviews with persons involved in this period, as Granatstein and Stairs did so effectively. He has not availed himself on the issues of the International Journal (!) devolved to such themes as 'The Commonwealth of Nations', 'Canada's Foreign Policy', and 'Lester Pearson's Diplomacy'. Government documents on the San Francisco conference or the Gouzenko case are not listed. Still more disappointing is the absence of any references to volume 7 of Documents on Canadian External Relations 1939-1941 which was published in 1974.

Among secondary sources one misses such useful volumes as those by Granatstein, Stairs and Fry. The memoirs of Heeney and Pop are overlooked, as is the third volume of Mike which could have been used on the Herbert Norman affair. Robertson's study of the Suez crisis has been neglected. Mansergh's collection of documents on Commonwealth affairs has been used but not the distillation of his views in The Commonwealth Experience.

American sources are even slimmer and do not, for example, include Truman's memoirs, Dziban's study of Military Relations between the United States and Canada 1939-1945, and the semi-official histories of American diplomacy by Langer and Gleason or Feis.

etc.

.............

The book is decent, but there's a fair amount of bitchy nitpicking by other historians over a rather opinionated historian

It's quite the interesting shitkicking for what he didn't include in a 319 page book.

never been impressed by Robertson's stuff on Suez

he's basically a fanatical Lester B. Pearsonite who just had an extreme bias against Anthony Eden the British Prime Minister in trying to get rid of Nasser after he nationalized the Suez Canal just before another Arab-Israeli war was breaking out.