Review by Choice Review
History in Quebec is more politically charged than in most parts of the world. Politicians play on historical grievances, and the province's motto--Je me souviens-- is itself founded on the past. So what of the historians of French Canada? This able book, the first full-length examination of modern Quebec historians and historiography by a scholar who is not parti pris, tells readers much. Rudin (Concordia Univ.) traces the relatively recent growth of the discipline, lays out the schools of thought that developed, and flays impartially at those who have left out inconvenient evidence or distorted the past. He attempts to resurrect the embarrassing Canon Lionel Groulx, and he slags Fernand Ouellet, the ablest antinationalist scholar of Quebec's past. He also points to the way the scholars who have tried to paint Quebec as a modern society have, like the others, misused their data. Rudin is unsparing in his critique, generally sensible, and almost always fair, most notably in the first full account of Ouellet's unhappy experiences in court when his attempt to write about the Papineaus, one of the province's first families, ran into a buzzsaw of family opposition and biased jurists. Quebec historians sat on their hands and allowed the book to be suppressed, an astonishing failure of courage. Overall, Rudin's book is an indispensable guide to the historian-players and, given the still undecided fate of Quebec in Canada, a useful roadmap to the past of the future. Upper-division undergraduates and above. J. L. Granatstein; York University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
