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In the first four episodes of the CBC'S Canadian history project, we are introduced to 'an era of daring' in which 'pathfinders and pirates' set out to 'claim a continent' and build a new society with 'courage, determination,' and (since we are slightly cynical modernists) 'sometimes folly.' The production, as an impressive number of television viewers will attest, is beautifully photographed, lavishly produced, and grandly ambitious. The first four parts take us from the peopling of the continent by Aboriginals to the Quebec Act with a storyline that is firmly rooted in what becomes central Canada.
It is also a storyline strongly reminiscent of the historiography of forty or fifty years ago, with echoes of Francis Parkman. War and discovery are the central motifs as heroic explorers, battling nations, and courageous settlers make a place for 'us' today. There is nothing from the works of scholars like Louise Dechene, Allan Greer, or Cole Harris to tell us about life in Montreal or on a seigneurie. Nor is there any evidence of socioeconomic patterns as interpreted by Fernand Ouellet and his successors. And curiously, although the series title and promotional material have emphasized that this is a series about ordinary people, not the prominent few once celebrated in historical writing, we meet relatively few of those...