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The founding of Canada;: Beginnings to 1815,
Book by Ryerson, Stanley Brehaut
358 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1972
About the author
Stanley Brehaut Ryerson
5 books1 followerStanley Bréhaut Egerton Ryerson (March 12, 1911 – 25 Apr 1998) was a Canadian historian, educator, political activist. His parents were Edward Stanley Ryerson and Tessie De Vigne, a well-off middle-class family in Toronto. Ryerson could trace his paternal lineage back to Egerton Ryerson, the "Pope of Methodism" in nineteenth century Toronto.
After attending Upper Canada College and University of Toronto he studied at the Sorbonne, Paris (1931-34), where he encountered European communist politics. He was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Canada 1935-69 and Québec provincial secretary 1936-40. He moved to Toronto in 1943 as the new Labour Progressive Party's education director and managing editor of its National Affairs Monthly.
After attending Upper Canada College and University of Toronto he studied at the Sorbonne, Paris (1931-34), where he encountered European communist politics. He was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Canada 1935-69 and Québec provincial secretary 1936-40. He moved to Toronto in 1943 as the new Labour Progressive Party's education director and managing editor of its National Affairs Monthly.
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April 15, 2020
Ryerson was a Stalinist, but his attempt to provide a material analysis of the founding of Canada is admirable nonetheless. There are valuable insights, especially as he s0ught to write a history which escaped the chauvinism of the "Two Solitudes" historical narrative by including First Nations.
Perhaps the most significant observation Ryerson makes about the conquest of New France, and its transformation into the Province of Quebec (not the modern province, but a province of the British Empire) was that the conquest by Britain of French colonial possessions created a new national question in Canada. First had been European rule over aboriginal people. “Now there was added the domination of one European nationality over another.”
We are familiar with the second in the modern era. Perhaps the greatest expression of the aspirations of Quebecois to throw off the shackles of subordination to Anglo Canadian capitalism was seen in the second half of the twentieth century, decades after Ryerson wrote, with the Quiet Revolution in Quebec, the FLQ crisis, and the rise of the Parti Quebecois.
The first "National Question" Ryerson identifies, which has long been ignored by Canadians but which could no longer be ignored after the Oka Crisis of 1990, and demonstrated again (not for the first time) just recently with the national protest and blockades in support of Wet'suwet'an sovereignty, was that of "European rule over aboriginal people."
There is much to disagree with in this book, especially in its quest to give a material basis for a supposed Canadian national identity. Ryerson, like most Stalinists, is not handy with the dialectical mode of analysis. He fails to understand that identitarian questions, or identity politics as we say nowadays, always have a class basis.
In pursuing a project in which he wants to discover the roots of a Canadian national identity by analysing the war of 1812, (Ryerson's decisive moment) without a proper analysis of the Canadian colonies (because by 1812 the "Province of Quebec" had become the colonies of Upper and Lower Canada - and subsequently joined as districts when these two colonies would become the "Province of Canada" in 1841) rooted in an analysis of facts, he serves as a sort of pseudo Marxist cover for bourgeois nationalism. Still, with that in mind, this history is welcome for its relative clarity and avoidance of academic obscurantism.
Perhaps the most significant observation Ryerson makes about the conquest of New France, and its transformation into the Province of Quebec (not the modern province, but a province of the British Empire) was that the conquest by Britain of French colonial possessions created a new national question in Canada. First had been European rule over aboriginal people. “Now there was added the domination of one European nationality over another.”
We are familiar with the second in the modern era. Perhaps the greatest expression of the aspirations of Quebecois to throw off the shackles of subordination to Anglo Canadian capitalism was seen in the second half of the twentieth century, decades after Ryerson wrote, with the Quiet Revolution in Quebec, the FLQ crisis, and the rise of the Parti Quebecois.
The first "National Question" Ryerson identifies, which has long been ignored by Canadians but which could no longer be ignored after the Oka Crisis of 1990, and demonstrated again (not for the first time) just recently with the national protest and blockades in support of Wet'suwet'an sovereignty, was that of "European rule over aboriginal people."
There is much to disagree with in this book, especially in its quest to give a material basis for a supposed Canadian national identity. Ryerson, like most Stalinists, is not handy with the dialectical mode of analysis. He fails to understand that identitarian questions, or identity politics as we say nowadays, always have a class basis.
In pursuing a project in which he wants to discover the roots of a Canadian national identity by analysing the war of 1812, (Ryerson's decisive moment) without a proper analysis of the Canadian colonies (because by 1812 the "Province of Quebec" had become the colonies of Upper and Lower Canada - and subsequently joined as districts when these two colonies would become the "Province of Canada" in 1841) rooted in an analysis of facts, he serves as a sort of pseudo Marxist cover for bourgeois nationalism. Still, with that in mind, this history is welcome for its relative clarity and avoidance of academic obscurantism.
Displaying 1 of 1 review