Untoward, the Last Spike

Any attempt at a widescreen portrayal of Canadian history is a risky undertaking these days. Toppled statues, heartfelt apologies, angry assertions of neglect, outraged counterclaims: since the turn of the century, this country’s past has become a battleground as various groups struggle to make their version of it the dominant story.

University-based historians have frequently exacerbated the conflicts, both by abandoning narrative history in favour of a more analytic and micro-community approach and by treating their discipline as a site of intellectual warfare, where they can recklessly trash the work of their predecessors. As Margaret MacMillan has pointed out, “We can learn from history, but we also deceive ourselves when we selectively take evidence from the past to justify what we have already made up our minds to do.”