Who Killed Canadian History? is a 1998 book by the Canadian historian J. L. Granatstein. The book argues that Canadians lack national unity because of their failure to teach their country's history. Granatstein contends that multiculturalism, social historians and weak history teaching standards are responsible for Canada's lack of a historical narrative. He advocates for a greater emphasis on the study of Canadian history in schools and university history departments, especially political and military history.
The 1980s and 1990s saw increasing disputes among Canadian historians, splitting between political and social historians. The historian Adam Chipnick describes Who Killed Canadian History? as "the pinnacle" of these disputes, termed the "history wars". According to Granatstein, the expanding reach of social historians in the history departments of Canadian universities has resulted in ineffectual and uneducated graduates. He further argues that poor teaching standards and political correctness have led to historical ignorance among Canadians, leaving them unable to properly appreciate their present and future. He suggests a number of measures to increase historical awareness, including implementing national teaching standards.
Upon release, the book was a national bestseller in Canada. It received positive reviews from the press, but was negatively received by most historians, leading to major debates in Canadian history journals. While many historians agreed with Granatstein's contention that Canadians are ignorant of their past, they disputed the book's argument that the blame lay with social historians and multiculturalism. Several criticized the book as poorly written and unfocused in its argumentation. Following its publication, the provinces Alberta and Manitoba implemented new history curricula emphasizing Canadian content; Historica Canada was founded, an organization whose stated goal is increasing awareness of Canadian history; and Granatstein was appointed director and CEO of the Canadian War Museum. Granatstein released an extensively revised and updated version of the book in 2007, though it received little attention compared to the original version.
Background Author
J. L. Granatstein is a Canadian historian and former professor. While serving in the Canadian Army, he received a BA from the Royal Military College of Canada and an MA from the University of Toronto. After receiving a PhD in 1966 from Duke University, he taught history at York University until his retirement in 1995. Stephen Azzi of Carleton University describes Granatstein as the "most prolific Canadian historian of his generation", and Peter Farrugia of Wilfrid Laurier University calls him "one of Canada's best known historians". In the 1970s and 80s, Granatstein's writing focused primarily on the Canadian government during the Second World War – especially Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King – before pivoting to military history in the 1990s.
Historian Leon Fink writes that, besides his history writing, Granatstein is best known for "his stinging neoconservative critique" of Canadian post-secondary institutions – especially tenure, journal subsidies, multiculturalism and political correctness. Granatstein wrote polemics against Canadian universities with his fellow historians David Bercuson and Robert Bothwell, published as The Great Brain Robbery: The Decline of Canada's Universities (1984) and Petrified Campus: The Crisis in Canada's Universities (1997). In his 1990 book on the breakdown of the Meech Lake Accord, journalist Andrew Cohen argues that Granatstein, alongside other contemporary historians Michael Bliss and Ramsay Cook, was among those who instigated public opposition to the eventually failed constitutional deal, writing that the historians "brought their sense of the country's past to the accord and declared it a tearing of the national fabric."
History wars
Disputes between Canadian historians, dubbed the "history wars",, quoted in . marked the 1980s and 1990s. Historian Cecilia Morgan writes that historians were increasingly "[working] within the structures (some might say strictures) of the academy and their departments", causing "considerable anxiety" for others in the field. Historian Christopher Dummitt classifies the two groups as the older generation, made up of "nationalists" who focus on studying historical leaders, and the younger generation of "inclusivists", approaching the field differently to study the stories of those generally passed over in previous research. Historian Adam Chipnick describes Granatstein as occupying the former group, and sees the book Who Killed Canadian History? as marking "the pinnacle (or the nadir) of... the 'history wars'."
Historian Graham Carr describes the book as fitting into a larger tradition of historiography books written since the 1960s, each of which lament a decline in the popular appreciation of history. Historian Robert Wright and journalist Andrew Cohen argue that the book advances points made by Michael Bliss in a 1991 Creighton Centennial Lecture,; . which Bliss later published in a Journal of Canadian Studies piece titled "Privatizing the Mind: The Sundering of Canadian History, the Sundering of Canada."; . Bliss's piece argues that, beginning in the 1970s, Canadian history-writing shifted from professional historians to "Via Rail nationalists" who "identified Canada and things Canadian with... the age of big government, universal social welfare programs, and subsidized culture.", quoted in . Granatstein had previously contributed to the dispute by criticizing what he saw as the increasingly narrow focus of social historians, referring to their study as "the history of [a] housemaid's knee in Belleville in the 1890s"., quoted in . Journalist Ray Conlogue writes the statement "hit a nerve", and historian Ken Osborne writes the dismissal "sent the historical establishment, not to mention ministries of education from coast to coast, to the battlements in self-defence." Having been consistently condemned for the assertion, Granatstein later reflected, "[i]t was an overstatement... but it reflected my increasing uneasiness and complete frustration at the way our history is taught."; .
The book also coincided with increased fears regarding Canadian unity, coming three years after a near secessionist victory in the 1995 Quebec independence referendum. Historian Chris Lorenz writes that for both Granatstein and Bliss, the Quebec sovereignty movement is "only the most visible symptom" of Canada's fragmentary society and that further societal division is likely if Canada cannot attain a central national identity. For professor Phil Ryan, Who Killed Canadian History? is one of three major Canadian books in the pre-September 11, 2001 era which disparage multiculturalism, the others being sociologist Reginald Bibby's Mosaic Madness: Pluralism Without a Cause (1990) and Richard Gwyn's Nationalism Without Walls: The Unbearable Lightness of Being Canadian (1995).; .
Content
HarperCollins first published the book in 1998.; . In 2007, Granatstein released an extensively revised and updated version, published in paperback by Harper Perennial.. Granatstein writes that the study and teaching of Canadian history has gradually degraded since the 1960s, and that this degradation is due to several factors, including "parochial regionalism", multiculturalism, "anti-élitist" methods of education and "victimization and blame seeking" in analysis of the past by both academics and the media., quoted in . It describes Canadian unity as weak, arguing that Canadians lack the uniformity seen in other countries due their lack of a historical narrative. Canadian history, Granatstein writes, merits study and would provide a basis for unity among Canadians, both natural born and immigrants.. Finding a lack of national standardization in history curricula, he disapproves of the fact that only four provinces have compulsory history courses for students.; . Canada's refusal to teach its own history, he continues, is due to fear of engaging in "its own cultural traditions – the European civilization on which our nation is founded – on the grounds that to do otherwise would systematically discriminate against those who come from other cultures."; .
Granatstein writes that while most in academia can "study whatever they choose without fear of losing their [job]",; . there is a struggle for control in Canadian history departments. The struggle, he writes, takes place between political historians – those who emphasize narrative, chronology and personality – and social historians – those who have little interest in political, military or "élite" history, but instead use its study for their own political purposes.; . As an example, he discusses a popular two-volume university textbook, the History of the Canadian Peoples, whose second volume was written by historians Margaret Conrad, Alvin Finkel and Veronica Strong-Boag.; . The textbook's preface states that they wrote it to counter the previous history as written by "a small élite of educated white men to be read by others like themselves",, quoted in . with the textbook focusing not on war and political developments or history from the perspective of leaders, but instead the working class, minorities and regions outside of Central Canada. Granatstein laments that such methods of study have resulted in university history departments that lack experts in military and political history,. while the remaining professors are ultimately "teaching ignorance" and "professing trivia" of "the blandest mush"., quoted in . The trend of new historians studying "tiny, trivial subjects" via "methodological nonsense", quoted in . has produced graduates who "emerge into the market place culturally illiterate, ignorant of the basic details about their nation and their society that every thinking citizen requires."; .
The book compares Canada's situation to that of the United States and the Netherlands. Comparing the United States' idea of a cultural "melting pot" against Canada's "mosaic", he refers to American intellectuals Robert Hughes, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. and Richard Rorty as discussing the downsides of multiculturalism,, quoted in . especially as espoused in Schlesinger's The Disuniting of America (1991), Hughes' Culture of Complaint: The Fraying of America (1993) and a 1994 piece Rorty wrote for The New York Times.; . Regarding the Netherlands, Granatstein comments that Dutch schools have heavily emphasized Canada's contribution in liberating the Netherlands from Nazi Germany: "The Dutch remember. They teach their children about the war in their schools; they teach that freedom is everything and that, if not defended, it can be lost.", quoted in . Canadians by contrast, he writes, have largely forgotten about this and other historical events, such as D-Day and the Battle of Vimy Ridge, leaving them unappreciative of their past and present., quoted in .
The book concludes that preventing the "decimation of [Canadian] history" and "resurrecting" the past are key to improving Canadian unity., quoted in To combat the concerns expressed, it offers solutions of national history standards, the institution of a "Canadian History Day", creating five "national history" chairs in Canadian Universities, a Centre for Canadian History, federally funded scholarships and the expansion of resources for libraries and history teachers.: standards, Canadian History Day, five chairs; : Centre for Canadian History, scholarships, expanded resources.
Reception