Brandão, José António

English

Histoire sociale / Social History (E-Journal, York University)

Histoire sociale – Social History, vol. XXXIX, no 77 (mai-May 2006)Comptes rendus / Book Reviews 307This is not just a book on diplomatic relations between the two countries. Meehangives a voice to all the different segments of Canadian society, whether French orEnglish, Anglo-Saxon or Asian, business, labour, or missionary. He provides a con-vincing picture of an interwar Canadian society far more interested in Japanese andAsian affairs than would be assumed. There were large numbers of missionaries,especially French-Canadian Catholics, and trade commissioners in Asia decadesbefore the idea of establishing a legation ever germinated (pp. 22, 29). He tries hisbest to give a voice to ordinary Canadians and their impressions of Japan. Scholarscould keep abreast of the Pacific region through the Institute of Pacific Relations,while religious circles published newsletters describing their missions’ work in Asia.Newspapers also frequently published letters and essays by missionaries and othertravellers to the Orient for the general readership. Although Meehan states that this isnot a book on Japanese perceptions of Canada, he does nonetheless usefully includesome Japanese opinion to Canadian activities in Japan. His frequent chapter-openinganecdotes on life in Japan are fascinating, and more of these episodes of cultural rela-tions would be welcome. The experience of ordinary Canadians in Japan is a storyworth examining.Because of the book’s inherent value to new readers in the field, a little more back-ground information on Canada’s trade relations with Japan prior to 1929 would havebeen appreciated. Trade commissioners are frequently mentioned, yet more informa-tion about them would be welcome. They were already present throughout China andJapan when the legation was established. Although the book nominally focuses onthe relation between Canada and Japan, a study of the two in the turbulent 1930s can-not be easily isolated. Japan was a country in the vast geographical entity known as"the Orient”, waging war and conquest in China during this decade. Conversely,Canada cannot be separated from the democratic bloc of nations. Meehan does a verygood job of providing each of these countries with its appropriate voice, at theexpense, however, of underscoring Canada’s real importance to Japan.These are minor quibbles in an otherwise excellent addition to our understandingof the beginnings of Canada’s long but little-known involvement in Japan and EastAsia. A well-written and well-researched book, The Dominion and the Rising Sunwill be, for many years, the starting point of future studies on Canada-Japan and Can-ada-East Asia research. Meehan has scratched the surface, and his excellent anno-tated bibliography should provide inspiration for further studies. One hopes this willmotivate more historians to examine our relation with our Pacific neighbour beforethe next anniversary arrives.Simon NantaisUniversity of VictoriaMILLER, J. R. — Reflections on Native-Newcomer Relations: Selected Essays. Tor-onto: University of Toronto Press, 2004. Pp. 304.J. R. Miller’s new book is a collection of 12 essays, five of which have not been pre-viously published. Written over the course of the last 15 (or so) years, these essays308 Histoire sociale / Social HistoryHistoire sociale – Social History, vol. XXXIX, no 77 (mai-May 2006)deal with Native-Newcomer relations in Canada (with some emphasis on the west)and cover the period from Confederation to the present day. The introductiondescribes the origins of each of the essays and the responses they received when theywere first published or presented at conferences. The essays themselves are dividedinto topical sections dealing with historiography, methodology, policy, the Crown,and academe. The section on policy contains four essays while all the others have buttwo.The essays on historiography trace the growth of the ethnohistorical method as ameans of understanding, and writing about, Natives in Canada and show how theapplication of that method, along with other factors such as a decline in ethnocen-trism, has brought the study of Native history in from the margins of Canadian his-tory. Those same trends, along with the methods of “social historians”, have also ledscholars to modify their thinking and writing about the rebellions in Western Canadain the late 1800s. The focus of scholarship has shifted from a view of the Métis andLouis Riel as obstacles to Canada’s growth to that of understanding Riel and theMétis as a people and trying to assess the implications of their mixed ancestry ontheir history and place among Canada’s First Nations. The section on methodologyincludes an essay dealing with the impact of new trends in the study of history, suchas postmodernism, and their generally negative implications for academic freedomand the study of Native history, and another on the use of photographs as texts for“reading” the Native perspective into history, particularly that of Indians in residen-tial schools. The latter piece is a case study in the application of the ethnohistoricalapproach of using multiple lines of inquiry and a variety of “sources” to recover thepast of those who left few written records.The section on policy includes Miller’s best-known pieces on federal policytowards Natives in Canada, including those dealing with the creation of residentialschools, the tensions between the aims of the church and state for the schools, andboth the problems the schools created for Indians and the ways in which Nativesadapted to make them fit their aspirations. The problems created by federal policyregarding land rights, which ignored Native positions and led to such conflicts asthose at Oka, Quebec, are explored in a third essay. This section also includes a sur-vey, ideal for classroom use, of Canada’s assimilationist policy in the period fromConfederation to the Great Depression.The section on the Crown explores the complex symbolism and changing relation-ship between Natives and the Crown in treaties and negotiations dating from thenumbered treaties of the 1800s to the present. Natives in Canada appealed to author-ities in London as a last resort to deal with vexing problems in their relations withCanadian authorities. Despite the hope Natives held out for Crown support, theiraspirations rarely met with success.The last two essays, based on Miller’s experiences at the University ofSaskatchewan, argue for a greater sensitivity to the lessons to be learned from Nativehistory and culture and for better inclusion of Native perspectives and values in theacademy. One can applaud the appeal for more Native scholars and the views theirexperiences can bring to research and university teaching. However, the argumentHistoire sociale – Social History, vol. XXXIX, no 77 (mai-May 2006)Comptes rendus / Book Reviews 309for looking to the League of the Iroquois as a potential model for university admin-istration seems more than problematic and is based on a simplistic, to say the least,interpretation of the League and its working.In the interest of full disclosure, let me state that I studied, for a brief time, at theUniversity of Saskatchewan (although I never took a class from Miller) and I amsympathetic to collections of essays. Still, such collections can present dilemmas. Onone hand, it is good to have the varied works of an original scholar in one handy col-lection. Yet serious students of the subject will almost invariably have read suchwork, either because they subscribe to the specialized journals in which the essaysfirst appeared or because they read the piece in the library. Including unpublishedpapers in the collection makes it more attractive, but often there was a good reasonwhy such material did not make it to press in the first place. Indeed, it seems thatreviewers of the book manuscript took issue with the value of some of the previouslyunpublished pieces. We know this because, in the introduction to Reflections, Millertakes the unusual step of acknowledging the manuscript readers’ critiques of severalpreviously unpublished essays and makes a case for their inclusion in the book(pp. 6, 8). A collection of essays can show the evolution of thinking about a subjectby a leading scholar in the field — and one who helped shaped the field — as doesthis group of essays by Miller, but cannot show the complete development of thescholar’s thinking. Collections exclude the author’s major monographs on the sub-ject, which also reflect his or her maturing understanding, and may include “dated”pieces that reflected concerns or issues that may have been long since resolved. Infact, Miller acknowledges that one essay “reflects concerns of a decade ago” (p. 6).In the end, then, collections of essays can present readers with as many disadvan-tages as advantages, and the ultimate decision about a collection’s merit is almost asmuch about personal interest and ease of access as it is about scholarly contribution.If one is interested in the subject of Native-Newcomer relations in Canada, curiousabout how Miller came to write about the subject, wants to know what he thinksabout the issues surrounding teaching Native history in a university setting, andwants all that in one handy volume, then one will welcome this collection.José António BrandãoWestern Michigan UniversityOTTERNESS, Philip — Becoming German: The 1709 Palatine Migration to NewYork. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2004, Pp. 235.Identity, Philip Otterness explains, is a complex issue. Becoming German, the historyof a 1709 migration across the Atlantic World, analyses the “Palatine” identity givento a disparate group of German-speaking immigrants upon their arrival in England.In one sense, Otterness demonstrates, their new identity was like a schoolyard nick-name that the immigrants could not shake. In another sense, however, it was an iden-tity the Palatines did not want to lose. The Palatines, who, Otterness argues, had a

Miller, J. R. — Reflections on Native-Newcomer Relations: Selected Essays

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Miller, J. R. — Reflections on Native-Newcomer Relations: Selected Essays

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Histoire sociale / Social History (E-Journal, York University)