Who Killed Canadian History?

HarperCollins first published the book in 1998.[Who 5] In 2007, Granatstein released an extensively revised and updated version, published in paperback by Harper Perennial.[19][Who 6] Granatstein writes that the study and teaching of Canadian history has gradually degraded since the 1960s, and that this degradation is due to several factors, including "parochial regionalism", multiculturalism, "anti-élitist" methods of education and "victimization and blame seeking" in analysis of the past by both academics and the media.[Who 7] It describes Canadian unity as weak,[Who 4] arguing that Canadians lack the uniformity seen in other countries due their lack of a historical narrative.[20] Canadian history, Granatstein writes, merits study and would provide a basis for unity among Canadians, both natural born and immigrants.[Who 8] Finding a lack of national standardization in history curricula,[21] he disapproves of the fact that only four provinces have compulsory history courses for students.[Who 9] Canada's refusal to teach its own history, he continues, is due to fear of engaging in "its own cultural traditions – the European civilization on which our nation is founded – on the grounds that to do otherwise would systematically discriminate against those who come from other cultures."[Who 10]

Granatstein writes that while most in academia can "study whatever they choose without fear of losing their [job]",[Who 11] there is a struggle for control in Canadian history departments.[3] The struggle, he writes, takes place between political historians – those who emphasize narrative, chronology and personality – and social historians – those who have little interest in political, military or "élite" history, but instead use its study for their own political purposes.[Who 12] As an example, he discusses a popular two-volume university textbook, the History of the Canadian Peoples, whose second volume was written by historians Margaret Conrad, Alvin Finkel and Veronica Strong-Boag.[Who 13] The textbook's preface states that they wrote it to counter the previous history as written by "a small élite of educated white men to be read by others like themselves",[Who 14] with the textbook focusing not on war and political developments or history from the perspective of leaders, but instead the working class, minorities and regions outside of Central Canada.[Who 14] Granatstein laments that such methods of study have resulted in university history departments that lack experts in military and political history,[Who 15] while the remaining professors are ultimately "teaching ignorance" and "professing trivia" of "the blandest mush".[Who 16] The trend of new historians studying "tiny, trivial subjects" via "methodological nonsense"[Who 17] has produced graduates who "emerge into the market place culturally illiterate, ignorant of the basic details about their nation and their society that every thinking citizen requires."[Who 18]

The book compares Canada's situation to that of the United States and the Netherlands.[17] Comparing the United States' idea of a cultural "melting pot" against Canada's "mosaic", he refers to American intellectuals Robert Hughes, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. and Richard Rorty as discussing the downsides of multiculturalism,[Who 19] especially as espoused in Schlesinger's The Disuniting of America (1991), Hughes' Culture of Complaint: The Fraying of America (1993) and a 1994 piece Rorty wrote for The New York Times.[Who 20][note 2] Regarding the Netherlands, Granatstein comments that Dutch schools have heavily emphasized Canada's contribution in liberating the Netherlands from Nazi Germany: "The Dutch remember. They teach their children about the war in their schools; they teach that freedom is everything and that, if not defended, it can be lost."[Who 21] Canadians by contrast, he writes, have largely forgotten about this and other historical events, such as D-Day and the Battle of Vimy Ridge, leaving them unappreciative of their past and present.[Who 22]

The book concludes that preventing the "decimation of [Canadian] history" and "resurrecting" the past are key to improving Canadian unity.[Who 23] To combat the concerns expressed, it offers solutions of national history standards, the institution of a "Canadian History Day", creating five "national history" chairs in Canadian Universities, a Centre for Canadian History, federally funded scholarships and the expansion of resources for libraries and history teachers.[22]

The book was a bestseller in Canada, selling around twenty thousand copies.[21] In the first week of April 1998, it entered Maclean's magazine's list of best-selling non-fiction at No. 7,[23] reaching No. 2 in July.[24] It received positive reviews from the press,[21] yet received generally negative reviews from professional historians.[2][note 3] Its publication resulted in an outburst of debate among historians and educators regarding history education in Canada,[26] many responses being written in Canadian history journals like the Canadian Historical Review.[16] Though some of Granatstein's colleagues reacted positively to the book, including Desmond Morton, Bercuson and Bothwell,[21] social historians were strident in their criticisms.[27]

In a 1999 piece for the Canadian Historical Review, social historian A. B. McKillop summarizes most critiques of the book,[27] writing that it presents only a partial understanding of what defines the Canadian identity. In particular, people need to be "made conscious of all aspects of their shared past", necessitating an "understanding of what it means to be weak as well as powerful".[28] He continues that Canadian historians have not established a new Canadian history since to do so would necessitate "a fundamental rethinking of the meaning and shape of the very idea of nation at a time when, throughout the world, nations and their identities are in flux", ultimately concluding it is unlikely any contemporary historian will manage to "[address] problems of collective identity".[29] Not all historians have agreed with McKillop's assessment,[30] such as Timothy Stanley, who criticizes both Granatstein and McKillop for "[assuming] that all Canadians have a 'shared past'". He writes that Canadians are divided by racism, with some privileged and others oppressed by it, and that the idea of a shared past arises from an inadequate accounting of this difference of experience.[31] He continues that, though McKillop is more "textured and inclusive" than Granatstein, he still narrows the study of history to "nationalist purposes".[32] Stanley agrees with concerns laid out by Bryan Palmer,[33] who writes that McKillop reduces the study of history to the civic necessities of a nation.[34] By contrast, social historian Adele Perry writes that Granatstein's attacks on social history "could not fault historians with abandoning their mission to the nation", but instead "made the blander argument that social historians' work failed to serve the nation well."[35]

Fink, Strong-Boag and Carr are critical of the book's writing style, describing it as poorly written and unfocused, veering into diatribes beyond its original premise.[36] Perry characterizes Granatstein's attacks on social history as "over-engaged and intemperate".[37] Lorenz and historian Deborah Gorham describe it as uneven in its studies of Canadian historiography, suggesting that historian Carl Berger provides a more balanced take on the subject.[38][note 4] Though many historians agree with Granatstein's original premise that Canadians are generally ignorant of their country's history, they dispute the reasons why.[40] Fink, Strong-Boag and historians Brian Gobbett and Alan Gordon write political correctness and multiculturalism are relatively recent phenomena when compared to Canada's lack of a national identity;[41] Strong-Boag further contends that there are accounts of "bored audiences" dating as far back as Confederation.[42] Wright suggests that Canadian's lack of interest in history is more fundamental than the poor teaching standards Granatstein mentions, with history "largely irrelevant to the lives of ordinary Canadians."[43] He continues, "if history provided [Canadians] the social, cultural, economic, and political architecture within which they contextualized their lived experience", then school curricula "would be the robust and exciting program that Granatstein imagines it ought to be."[44]

In her study of Louis Riel historiography, historian Jennifer Reid agrees with the book's sentiment that Canadians regret their lack of cultural heroes, but questions why Granatstein opposes the celebration of Riel.[45] Granatstein describes Riel as a "crazed religious fanatic" and argues that not all Canadians could agree on whether his actions were heroic.[Who 24] According to historian George Goulet, by Granatstein's standard no historical figure could ever be fit to be a Canadian hero.[46] Reid is further critical of the book's position that Canadian historians overemphasize the country's history of violence and that it is "benign" when compared to other countries that have "overcome" their histories.[Who 25][note 5] She writes that Granatstein's perspective of a "benign" history is due to his removing the stories of those who have experienced violence from the country's historical narrative, especially its Indigenous population.[47] In his study of Jacques Cartier historiography, Gordon writes that the 20th-century shift from embracing historical heroes to the "trivial and empty idols of Hollywood and hockey" is not due to political correctness and multiculturalism in Canada, but is instead part of a larger worldwide shift in the historical method and "meaning" of history.[48] Historians, he writes, need to understand the inherently political nature of their field, and to reassess their discipline's limited role in shaping the "common sense knowledge", concluding that attempts to "rebuild a lost national identity" by celebrating historical figures like John A. Macdonald will ultimately prove fruitless.[49] Fink concludes that none of Granatstein's proposed solutions will avoid the ultimate problem of "boring Canadian history pedagogy",[50] and Strong-Boag writes that the initiatives proposed are insufficient without historians that provide "faithful accounts of the past".[42]

Following the book's publication, Granatstein was appointed director and CEO of Ottawa's Canadian War Museum (pictured) in 1998.

Azzi writes that despite the negative reception from historians, the book improved the general public's knowledge of Canadian history.[2] Following its publication, the provinces Alberta and Manitoba implemented new and expanded history curricula covering more Canadian content; Alberta included more information for elementary school students on pre- and post-Confederation history, as well as high school courses covering Canadian military history, while Manitoba made Canadian history a large focus of grades four through seven.[Who 27] Granatstein laments in the preface to the revised 2007 edition that "most [provinces] did nothing".[Who 28]

The book inspired Lynton Wilson, then a chair at the telecommunications firm BCE Inc., to promote Canadian history.[51][Who 29] He and fellow executive Charles Bronfman made large contributions to start Historica Canada, an organization whose stated goal is increasing awareness of Canadian history.[2][51] In 1998, Granatstein was appointed director and CEO of the Canadian War Museum,[2] serving in the position from 1 July 1998 to 30 June 2000.[Who 30] In 2000, the Canadian government provided $134 million (equivalent to CAD$200 million in 2021) for the building of a new museum building,[Who 31] Granatstein playing a major role in its creation.[2]

Ken Osborne writes that while it set off major debates among Canadian academics when first published in 1998, the revised and republished edition of the book from 2007 attracted comparatively little attention in the public, press or academia, concluding that, "[f]or the time being ... the history wars seem to be over."[52] Reflecting in 2014, historian Gregory Kealey writes that the book's "jeremiad for a lost, mythical world of manly men in politics and war, ended in an easy victory for social and cultural history."[53] Dummitt agrees, writing that the "inclusivists" have won out over the "nationalists", mostly due to retirements among the latter.[7] Despite this victory, he writes that the "inclusivists" have still failed to reach a popular audience. He finds the homogeneity in thought among contemporary historians regrettable for the field due to the resulting lack of historical debate.[54]

• Who Killed the Canadian Military?, a 2004 book by Granatstein