Search results for ""author phillip buckner""

Sir John Seeley once wrote that the British Empire was acquired in “a fit of absence of mind.” Whatever the truth of this comment, it is certainly arguable that the Empire was dismantled in such a fit. This collection deals with a neglected subject in post-Confederation Canadian history – the implications to Canada and Canadians of British decolonization and the end of empire.Canada and the End of Empire looks at Canadian diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom and the United States, the Suez crisis, the changing economic relationship with Great Britain in the 1950s and 1960s, the role of educational and cultural institutions in maintaining the British connection, the royal tour of 1959, the decision to adopt a new flag in 1964, the efforts to find a formula for repatriating the constitution, the Canadianization of the Royal Canadian Navy, and the attitude of First Nations to the changed nature of the Anglo-Canadian relationship. Historians in Commonwealth countries tend to view the end of British rule from a nationalist perspective. Canada and the End of Empire challenges this view and demonstrates the centrality of imperial history in Canadian historiography.An important addition to the growing canon of empire studies and imperial history, this book will be of interest to historians of the Commonwealth, and to scholars and students interested in the relationship between colonialism and nationalism.

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This companion volume to Revisiting 1759 examines how the Conquest of Canada has been remembered, commemorated, interpreted, and reinterpreted by groups in Canada, France, Great Britain, the United States, and most of all, in Quebec. It focuses particularly on how the public memory of the Conquest has been used for a variety of cultural, political, and intellectual purposes. The essays contained in this volume investigate topics such as the legacy of 1759 in twentieth-century Quebec; the memorialization of General James Wolfe in a variety of national contexts; and the re-imagination of the Plains of Abraham as a tourist destination. Combined with Revisiting 1759, this collection provides readers with the most comprehensive, wide-ranging assessment to date of the lasting effects of the Conquest of Canada.

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In the decades following the Second World War, a revolutionary change took place in the Canadian national identity. The English-Canadian majority entered this period identifying themselves as British and emerged from it with a new, independent sense of themselves as purely Canadian. Assured of their unique place in the world, Canadians can now reflect on the legacies and lessons of their British colonial past.Canada and the British World surveys Canada's national history through a British lens. In a series of essays focusing on the social, cultural, and intellectual aspects of Canadian identity over more than a century, the complex and evolving relationship between Canada and the larger British World is revealed. Examining the transition from the strong belief of nineteenth-century Canadians in the British character of their country to the realities of modern multicultural Canada, this book eschews nostalgia in its endeavour to understand the dynamic and complicated society in which Canadians did and do live.Candid and ambitious, Canada and the British World is recommended reading for historians and scholars of colonialism and nationalism, as well as anyone interested in what it really means to be Canadian.

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In the decades following the Second World War, a revolutionary change took place in the Canadian national identity. The English-Canadian majority entered this period identifying themselves as British and emerged from it with a new, independent sense of themselves as purely Canadian. Assured of their unique place in the world, Canadians can now reflect on the legacies and lessons of their British colonial past.Canada and the British World surveys Canada's national history through a British lens. In a series of essays focusing on the social, cultural, and intellectual aspects of Canadian identity over more than a century, the complex and evolving relationship between Canada and the larger British World is revealed. Examining the transition from the strong belief of nineteenth-century Canadians in the British character of their country to the realities of modern multicultural Canada, this book eschews nostalgia in its endeavour to understand the dynamic and complicated society in which Canadians did and do live.Candid and ambitious, Canada and the British World is recommended reading for historians and scholars of colonialism and nationalism, as well as anyone interested in what it really means to be Canadian.

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