MacDougall, H. A.

English

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

COMPTES REND US- BOOK REVIEWS 93 possible an escape from the Puritan injunction that "labour is fitter for you than sport." John Locke's prescription of uncomfortable and arduous forms of exercise, by taking the enjoyment out of sport, effected a neat reconciliation with Puritan views. And finally, in spite of the injunctions of the moralists and the doubts of philosophers, those classes of Englishmen least touched by Puritan· ism created, in the later years of the seventeenth century, the beginnings of that extraordinary structure of games England was later to export to the world, complete with . rules, "professionals," gambling and clubs. The question is inescapable: what was it about English society that gave rise to such immoderate condemnation of games, and such immoderate in·ventiveness in their creation ? In our own age, when hundreds of millions play or watch games which had their origin in the rude pastimes of Tudor peasants or the gambling tastes of Restoration nobles, the nature of sport has become of major sociolo· gical significance. As this fact sinks in, studies like Brailsford's will become more frequent; but he has already done much to demonstrate the absurdity of "the most remarkable of existing academic taboos." * * s. F. WISE, Directorate of History, National, Defence Headquarters, Ottawa. * L.P. CURTIS, Jr. -Anglo-Saxons and Celts; A Study of Anti-Irish Prejudice in Victorian England. New York: New York University Press for the University of Bridgeport, 1968. 162 pp. Studies in British History and Culture, II. Macaulay, in one · of his more exuberant essays once observed how in the course of seven centuries a wretched and degraded Anglo-Saxon race became "the greatest and most highly civilised people that ever the world saw". Most Victorians who warmed to such things as national pride and special destiny would have strongly assented to Macaulay's view. Did not the uni-versally acknowledged pre-eminence that England had attained by the mid. nineteenth century clearly demonstrate the reasonableness of their most gifted historian's judgment ? If there were doubts Victorians needed only to con· template the low status of their Irish neighbours: While privileged Englishmen dreamed of . Empire and greater wealth, the thoughtftJ.l Celt reflected on the tragic history of a race whose most per~ manent characteristic was failure. Within a decade o{ the famine. years one-fourth,. of the population of Ireland migrated from a country that had apparently lost hope. Anglo-Saxon Protestants, after three centuries of anxiety; might be relieved at the weakening of the Popish stronghold at the back door of England; still, a satisfactory resolution of the Irish . Question continued to elude uncomprehending British politicians in the age of Victoria as it had 94 HISTOIRE SOCIALE ~SOCIAL HISTORY eluded every English statesman since Henry II. Centuries of mutual mis-understanding and mistrust reinforced by contemporary dogmas on national superiority and progress made it certain that the Anglo-Saxon continued to see the Irish Celt through deeply prejudiced eyes. L. P. Curtis, Jr., in his analysis 0£ the Anglo-Saxon's attitude to the Celt, is aware of the complexity and breadth of the subject he is investigating, but his goal throughout is precision. To control his study he chooses to limit it to "a study 0£ Anti-Irish prejudice in Victorian England". But as he indicates in the opening pages his work is really an inquiry into the role of ethnic or racial prejudice in Anglo-Irish relations during the Victorian era. He is concerned with the racial prejudices 0£ the governing classes rather than of the masses. For evidence he leans heavily on Victorian men 0£ letters, the ethnologists, anthropologists and historians. As models of critical objectivity in assessing the Celt the Victorian historians fare badly. Macaulay, Freeman, Green, Froude, Stubbs all emerge as staunch Anglo-Saxonists, and staunch Anglo· Saxonists "were prepared to argue that the English people really did possess a unique genius for good government and for ordering their domestic and imperial affairs with success" (p. 75). The Celts, in contrast, showed a native genius for servitude. They were, in the mind of the Anglo-Saxonist, obviously racially in.ferior and not apt material for self-government. Curtis in a brief chapter (a digression in a work on Victorian England) indicates how the notion of Anglo-Saxon supremacy and Celtic inferiority grew in America, particularly in the latter half of the nineteenth century. He then returns to a consideration of the importance of the ethnic myth on the debate over Irish Home Rule in the 1880's and 1890's. And finally he touches on the revival of Celticism in the late Victorian period - a racist response to a racist challenge. Curtis has presented a carefully written sketch which helps bring new light to a sensitive area. He does his work well. Still it is questionable whether he has av-0ided distortion. His very method of isolating one type of prejudice, viz. racial, and concentrating on it to the exclusion of other factors, lends itself to over-simplification (-0r "undercomplification" to borrow Abraham Kaplan's term). The Anglo-Saxon's prejudiced attitude to the Celt was deter-mined by a multitude of historical factors, one of which was racial in character. The entire history of two peoples caught up in, seven centuries of hostility is involved. The story of the survival of two peoples in a rude society, includin·g war, subjugation, exploitations 0£ varied sorts, conflicting social habits, conflicting religious and political ideologies, all entangled in a web that extended beyond · the British Isles to embrace continental and trans-con· tinental intrigues and interests, is a story that defies strict categorization and exact measurement. The historian struggling - always somewhat unsuccess· fully - to present a rational reconstruction of the past cannot be faulted for COMPTES REND US - BOOK REVIEWS 95 attempting to locate and isolate the significant factors which help expose a given problem. That is his business. But where the lengthy and inter-related history of two evolving peoples is concerned there are no master keys awaiting discovery. The present work, while offering an interesting and somewhat novel approach to the study of a complex issue, leaves much vital ground unexplored. Mr. Curtis plans a full-length study of Anglo-Saxonism in Greater Britain and Celticism in Greater Ireland. He faces a demanding challenge. On the basis of his present precis one can await its completion confident that it will be a well-constructed, original and stimulating work. * * * H. A. MACDOUGALL, St. Patrick's College, Carleton University. Economre quebecoise, 1525-1965. 1969, 495 pp. (Cahrers de l'Universite du Quebec.) La publication de ce livre ne peut se justifier que par !'intention louable de mettre a la disposition des debutants en. histoire un certain bloc de faits economiques. En effet ce cahier comprend 21 articles dont quelques-uns seule-ment meriteraient de figurer dans une revue scientifique. Meme a l'interieur de ce groupe restreint que couvrent les textes de Dubuc, Bonenfant, Seguin, St-Germain, Wallot et Paquet, des nuances s'imposent. Ainsi le texte deja fort ancien du professeur Seguin, qui contient un expose des conceptions de son auteur au moment OU ii commen~ait a echapper a l'emprise de Groulx, parait aujourd'hui bien depasse. II n'a guere plus qu'un interet historiographique. Quant au texte du professeur Dubuc sur le developpement economique de 1900 a 1940, ii n'est certes pas a la mesure de ce qu'on attend de son auteur. En fait, le long article des professeurs Wallot et Paquet, Canada, 1760-1850: anamorphoses et prospective, est, malgre les pedanteries du vocabulaire, de loin le plus substantiel du livre. Son importance tient autant a un ensemble d'elements positifs qu'a d'instructives c anamorphoses >. II convient d'abord de signaler le chemin parcouru par les deux auteurs depuis l'automne 1965. A cette date, le professeur Paquet voyait encore une opposition fondamentale entre une approche structurale et l'approche historique. A ses yeux, l'historien n'etait guere plus qu'un ideologue 1• Sur un sujet plus specifique, ii pensait encore que !'emigration des Canadiens fran~ais aux Etats-Unis, en tant que phenomene economique, ne debutait qu'en 1870 2• Quant au prof esseur W allot, ii pratiquait massivement une histoire historisante et 1 G. PAQUET, Some Yiews on the Pattern of Canadian Economic Development, in T. N. BREWlll, ed., Growth of the Canadian Economr, Toronto, 1968. 2 G. PAQUET, L'emisration des Canadiens /ran~ aux Etats-Unis, dana Rechercha Sociographiques, 1964, 323. 

L.P. CURTIS, Jr. - Anglo-Saxons and Celts; A Study of Anti-Irish Prejudice in Victorian England.

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L.P. CURTIS, Jr. - Anglo-Saxons and Celts; A Study of Anti-Irish Prejudice in Victorian England.

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