Hallowell, Gerald, ed. The Oxford Companion to Canadian History. Don Mills: Oxford University Press, 2004. Pp. 748. $79.95 All Rights Reserved © Urban History Review / Revue d'histoire urbaine, 2006 Ce document est protégé par la loi sur le droit d’auteur. L’utilisation des services d’Érudit (y compris la reproduction) est assujettie à sa politique d’utilisation que vous pouvez consulter en ligne. https://apropos.erudit.org/fr/usagers/politique-dutilisation/ Cet article est diffusé et préservé par Érudit. Érudit est un consortium interuniversitaire sans but lucratif composé de l’Université de Montréal, l’Université Laval et l’Université du Québec à Montréal. Il a pour mission la promotion et la valorisation de la recherche. https://www.erudit.org/fr/ Document généré le 5 avr. 2021 21:00 Urban History Review Revue d'histoire urbaine Hallowell, Gerald, ed. The Oxford Companion to Canadian History. Don Mills: Oxford University Press, 2004. Pp. 748. $79.95 Jeffrey P. Plante Volume 34, numéro 2, spring 2006 URI : https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1016017ar DOI : https://doi.org/10.7202/1016017ar Aller au sommaire du numéro Éditeur(s) Urban History Review / Revue d'histoire urbaine ISSN 0703-0428 (imprimé) 1918-5138 (numérique) Découvrir la revue Citer ce compte rendu Plante, J. P. (2006). Compte rendu de [Hallowell, Gerald, ed. The Oxford Companion to Canadian History. Don Mills: Oxford University Press, 2004. Pp. 748. $79.95]. Urban History Review / Revue d'histoire urbaine, 34(2), 61–62. https://doi.org/10.7202/1016017ar https://apropos.erudit.org/fr/usagers/politique-dutilisation/ https://www.erudit.org/fr/ https://www.erudit.org/fr/ https://www.erudit.org/fr/revues/uhr/ https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1016017ar https://doi.org/10.7202/1016017ar https://www.erudit.org/fr/revues/uhr/2006-v34-n2-uhr0608/ https://www.erudit.org/fr/revues/uhr/ Book Reviews / Comptes rendus "foreigners" pay a differential fee for parking in another's neigh- bourhood also implies a level of control and definition for local areas that has not so far been a notable feature of our cities. Our city governments have mostly been broadly based regimes of control with weak local structures. The distribution of benefits from such a profitable resource as paid parking also raises interesting questions. The expected use of revenue to enhance the local public environment will produce pockets of substantial financial clout. Others might argue that the negative effects of local parking should be contextualized within the whole driving trip that also delivers negative effects to other areas, for which no income is available. The allocation of such revenue to local needs does, however, have the merit of actually working as a sys- tem. The question here is whether this is a good societal model. The book is full of useful material with which planners should familiarize themselves, in the event that our society does not completely abandon municipal control over parking. The capital cost estimation methods are clear and understandable, and should be a part of planning practice in any event. Those who would like to see a more balanced transportation system with a greater emphasis on non-motorized and public modes of transportation could use some of Professor Shoup's arguments. The book is a great parting shot in the timely debate on the role of city governments in supplying infrastructure for private transportation. John Zacharias Concordia University Hallowell, Gerald, ed. The Oxford Companion to Canadian History. Don Mills: Oxford University Press, 2004. Pp. 748. $79.95. The Oxford Companion to Canadian History represents the col- laborative work of more than five hundred scholars under the guidance of editor Gerald Hallowell, formerly of the University of Toronto Press. The Companion is in many respects an extensive, comprehensive read, and as a result it is destined to become a requisite text for scholars and students of Canadian history. Those of us interested in learning more about Canadian history will find The Companion to be an invaluable source for refer- ence information on a variety of subjects. Undergraduate students seeking background information or a general starting point for their work will find this text to be immeasurably useful. However, some necessary precau- tions must be given some consideration. As with any text that attempts to be comprehensive or encapsulate its subject in its entirety, The Companion invariably leaves some glaring omis- sions. This is not to suggest that it fails or is in anyway unsuc- cessful—on the contrary, its contributors and its editor should be applauded for their achievements in producing this fine work. However, some areas of Canadian history seem overem- phasized, while other topics and events are not given the treat- ment they deserve or in some cases fail to be mentioned at all. One of the more puzzling elements within the text is its quasi- interdisciplinary approach to history with regard to the arts and in particular music and dance. For example, there are entries on teacher and composer John Weizweig, contralto Portia White, and soprano Emma Albani, whereas there are no entries (or mention) of either Sir John Colbome or Sir Francis Bond Head, both of whom were lieutenant governors of Upper Canada during the tumultuous period of the Rebellions of 1837-38. In addition, the entry on the history of dance receives treatment of nearly one and a half pages. In comparison, Confederation merits just one half page. Leading Maritime politician Sir Samuel Leonard Tilley, a strong advocate for Confederation and the politician responsible for New Brunswick's decision to enter Confederation in 1867, receives just a brief mention. Other politicians instrumental in the deal for Confederation are also overlooked. This pattern continues throughout the text. The Companion also includes entries on a variety of topics such as academic freedom, lighthouses, art galleries, Timothy Findley's The Wars, and Franz Boas. While each of these entries is in some sense deserving, it is hard to argue for their inclusion when the Somalia Affair, Mitchell Sharpe and the Sharpe Principles, Fort George, Charles Dickens, the French and Indian Wars, and the Plains of Abraham are not represented as entries. The Companion provides us with extensive examples of explorers, scientists, and travellers, but is quite selective in this proc- ess. There is no mention of Thackeray, Henry David Thoreau, Isabella Bishop, Harriet Martineau, or John Goldie. Goldie's early nineteenth-century work on horticulture in Niagara cre- ated unprecedented levels of scientific interest in Canada and should have been included, given the text's emphasis on sci- ence and in particular scientific contributions and discoveries that were made in Canada and/or were made by Canadians. Besides science and the arts, other themes are also well represented in the text including education, urban history, and women's history. There are numerous entries pertaining to indi- vidual urban centres such as Montreal, Toronto, and St. John's. Perhaps the most interesting entries in this regard are those that highlight smaller urban centres such as Thunder Bay—which seems to have been included more so for its declining eco- nomic fortunes than as a leading urban centre. There are also useful entries on both the suburbs and urbanization. In this context, it could be pointed out that The Companion makes no mention of historiography or of urban history as a field or as subfield of social history. In fact there is no discussion or defini- tion of cultural history or social history in a Canadian context in the text either. This is not beyond the scope of the project, since Jan Noel's entry on femmes favorisées? does an excellent job of discussing and outlining the rise of scholarship on Canadian women in conjunction with the feminist movement. Perhaps the most disturbing element of this text is the inclu- sion of at least two references to the Montreal Massacre that 61 Urban History Review /Revue d'histoire urbaine Vol. XXXIV, No. 2 (Spring 2006printemps) Book Reviews / Comptes rendus imply that the events that culminated in the tragic loss of life of thirteen female students and a secretary were part of a grow- ing trend of anti-feminist sentiment and an extreme example of widespread misogyny in Canada rather than the deranged actions of a mentally ill individual. This characterization is itself extreme and should have been more carefully considered. Overall The Oxford Companion to Canadian History is an excel- lent choice for students who are seeking a primer on Canadian history and for scholars who are in need of such an anticipated reference work. Canadians will find this to be an insightful, edu- cational, and at times lively and entertaining look at our history. Jeffrey P. Plante York University Radforth, Ian. Royal Spectacle: The 1860 Visit of the Prince of Wales to Canada and the United States. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004. Pp. xi, 469. Illustrations, $39.95 paper. Royal visits to Canada have been of considerable interest to Canadian scholars in recent years. They have come from a vari- ety of directions and have produced some fascinating scholar- ship. Following on Viv Nelles's enormous success with The Art of Nation Building, which explored the politics behind the 1908 commemorative events surrounding the 300th anniversary of the founding of Quebec, this volume takes on the well-known visit of the very youthful Edward Albert, Prince of Wales, to British North America and the United States in 1860. As with Nelles's approach, the objective here is to use the visit, along with all its resulting paraphernalia and reportage, as a prism through which to view colonial societies, seen by Radforth to be groping toward a transformation of identity on the eve of Confederation, though, as a way of examining colonial politics and society, it seldom gets far beyond a rather voyeuristic appreciation of the various communities that were visited, as reflected in the large amounts of reportage. At one level, Royal Spectacle is a straightforward recounting of the princely entourage's passage through the colonies, starting with the decision to travel and following along as he makes his way through the various communities. What the colonists chose to put on view for the prince (and how their various spectacles were received by the royal visitor and his handlers) provides most of the grist for Radforth's mill. And the mill grinds pretty slowly in some parts, as it moves through the languid and repetitious ceremonies marking the prince's passage from Saint John's through all the colonial towns and cities along his route, til his final exit from Canada via Windsor and Detroit after a tortuous two months of travelling and feting. The presumption in such extended examinations of specific moments or events such as these is that deep analysis of the material produced by the occasion will offer an opportunity for a comparably deeper understanding of the society from which the material emanates. This study is based largely on a close reading of newspaper accounts of the prince's every move, several contemporary accounts produced by the nineteenth- century equivalent of royal watchers, the private recollections of several members of the royal entourage, as well as the papers of various politicians and imperial officials associated with the trip. It is a rich brew of sometimes contradictory evidence. Urban historians might be directly interested in the book because most of the events described take place within the boundaries of British North America's exploding urban spaces. After all, the occasion for the visit was at least in part to inau- gurate the Victoria Bridge in Montreal, considered by many to be one of the marvels of the day and a wonderful example of the intersection of interests by colonial governments, railway magnates, and municipalities in linking cities together. But at every stop along the route of the visit processions of mayors and councillors anxiously boosted their particular communi- ties with displays of pomp and circumstance designed to bring some attention to their community's possibilities for investment and development. The focal point provided by the vast array of newspaper commentators and the need to shed the best possible light on their communities resulted in a fair amount of sprucing up and lots of involvement with precedence being set in the various public occasions. Radforth enhances this discus- sion with a wealth of illustrative material from the contemporary illustrated press, which offers something of the flavour of the communities discussed. There is much else in the discussion to tempt urbanists, includ- ing an interesting discussion of the role and place of native people, so often at the edge of the urban environment but foregrounded in many celebrations to demonstrate the exotic nature of North America. Tensions between the Orange Order and the Duke of Newcastle, who refused to allow Irish politics any play in the occasion, are prominently discussed. And an informed discussion of the tourist experience that characterized the prince's passage through the colonies offers some fresh insight into the emergence of the tourist craze that was about to swamp North America. All these subjects are dealt with in a spirit of enquiry that will command the attention of cultural histo- rians of the nineteenth-century North American city. The interplay of social and cultural groups that struggled for place and precedence in front of the royal entourage and its powerful press corps was perhaps the most revealing aspect of the whole trip. This is picked up in a very interesting pair of chapters dealing with the second half of the trip, through the eastern United States, which culminated in a spectacular reception in New York that was the quintessence of antebellum American society. It also put in the shadows all the attempts at such spectacle in the much smaller British North American cities. It was in America that the diplomatic purpose of the trip was most apparent, as the British used the fascination with roy- alty to shore up their shaky relationship with the United States on the eve of the Civil War. But it was there as well that the full flower of urban transformation was most apparent to the follow- ers of the royals. Toronto and Montreal were overshadowed by 62 Urban History Review /Revue d'histoire urbaine Vol XXXIV, No. 2 (Spring 2006printemps)