Who Killed Canadian History? was my airplane read on the the way home from a course the other week. I don't know why but I always manage to read non-fiction much better when stuck on a plane or in an airport.

The title raised a couple of interested looks from passers-by. Unfortunately, none commented. Unfortunately because the book has the interesting topic of whether Canadian history is at risk of being forgotten because of the prevalence of the US media and its focus on US history as well as a tendency within the Canadian education system to focus on the history of minorities or specialist aspects in history rather than on a general history of Canada.

Of course, my knowledge of Canada and its history is pretty non-existent and I have no intention to weigh in on Granatstein's argument. However, I did find his book interesting in that it is easy to follow, thorough, and provoking thoughts about how history, not only in Canada, is recorded and taught.

Parts of it reminded me of Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death but this was more in relation to the style of argument which is easy to follow but still conveys a lot of information.
I loved that I actually learned a few things along the way, too.

So, in short I have no idea whether Granatstein's argument is valid but it did make for entertaining and educational reading. ( )

Jack Granatstein has written a book lamenting the lack of teaching of Canadian political and military history from a national perspective. I agree with him.

He notes that what history is taught in Candian schools and universities has largely become regionalized, and is now almost exclusively social history. He supports the need for social history, and for the inclusion of multiple perspectives. He just wants national political and military history included as part of the mix. I agree with him.

I like his writing style, and his frankness in putting his personal views on the line throughout the book.

At 186 pages, though, the book is too long. It is repetitious. It could have been a magazine article without losing any of the messages, and would have been equally compelling. ( )

This is in some ways an angry book: anger about the neglect, and worse positive dismissal, of the value of history and the efffect that not having it has on Canada and Canadians. Who killed it? Any number of people and fads according to Granatstein, from the educational bureaucrats to the multicultural enthusiasts, to the academics who revel in trivia and wallow in negativity that given with no contexts portray a brutal, racist, sexist society in Canada. I am the converted on this issue as I think Granatstein is right: history is terribly neglected and all the political correctness of our mutlicultural society and the revisionist attempts to rights the wrongs of the past do us a considerable disservice. Kids emerge today from high school appallingly ignorant of the most basic historic facts of the 20th century, never mind some of the smaller details of world or Canadian history.