[Great Canadian political cartoons, 1820 to 1914]

Consider, for a moment, the following image. It shows a stem looking Sir John A. Macdonald, dressed as a police officer, facing outward from a precipice high above the Pacific Ocean at the Western edge of Canada. Behind him stand a throng of European men and women, shovels and suitcases in hand. They have just disembarked from a railway train, above which floats the word "civilization." On the horizon the glow of a settling sun shouts "Westward Ho!", as if enticing settlers to a land of dreams. But not all is sunny in this visual story, for in front of the Prime Minister, cowering against the continent's edge, huddle four First Nations people, apprehensive, scared, and clearly on the defensive. The police officer, his baton hovering menacingly above them, barks out a stem and authoritative warning: "Here you copper colored gentlemen, no loafing allowed, you must either work or jump." What European concepts like "loafing" could have meant to Native people who were after all, just "living" here, much as they had done for centuries, is open to speculation. But what is clear is that the cartoon, published on 20 June 1885 in the Toronto Evening News, offers a classic statement of the "conquest" that lies at the heart of nation-building in nineteenth-century Canada. Native peoples had two choices, according to the Prime Minister: either join "civilization" or face extinction. This cartoon is one of 336 carefully selected and sharply reproduced by Charles and Cynthia Hou in their privately-published volume, Great Canadian Political Cartoons. The images reflect widely on Canadian political life from the 1840s to the First World War, with one lone cartoon dating from an earlier period, in 1820. The visual commentary that emerges is as diverse as the complex history of Canada itself. Politicians such as Sir John A. Macdonald, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, and Henri Bourassa figure prominently, as do such predictable themes as Confederation, the National Policy, anxiety about the power and influence of our southern neighbour, the naval question, Canada's ties to Britain, and French-English relations. But even for those of us who teach Canadian history the cartoons constantly delight the reader with new insights on familiar topics. One of my favourites is a simple sketch showing three images of a civil servant "at work"; published in Quebec City journal called "La Scie" in April 1866, the portrayal of the man named Pacot lounging, snoozing, and yawning while on the job was clearly controversial, and resulted in the arrest of the cartoonist Two caricatures of the Senate as a home for aged politicians have contemporary relevance, as does a striking image from 1882 asking if Macdonald intends to abolish provincial autonomy by centralizing power in Ottawa. Unlike the Senate cartoons, however, the latter stands out for its contrast to the present day, rather than its parallel. I found particularly fascinating the visual commentaries on social and cultural aspects of Canada's political culture. The image of Macdonald telling Native people to "get civilized or else" is an obvious example, but there are many others throughout the book. Prostitution, the growing tension between capital and labour, the power of the Roman Catholic Church, anxiety among the country's dominant French and English-speaking groups over the ethnically diverse character of immigrants in the early 1900s, and the place of women in society are commented on, sometimes in ways that appear to be quite outrageous and controversial. Take, for example, the cartoon published by Bob Edwards of The Eye Opener in Calgary on the occasion of a visit to Canada in 1910 by British feminist Emmeline Pankhurst. Entitled "Mrs. Pankhurst, at Toronto: the day will come when women will sit in your Canadian Parliament," it portrays women MPs in what by today's standards would be considered a blatantly sexist manner. One woman asks a male colleague, "Is my hat on straight," while another suggests, "Let's have a cup of tea." A third woman MP is sitting on the knee of MP Frederick Borden. What are we to make of this? Is the cartoonist satirizing the cause of suffrage for women, or is he intending to be ironic, and critical of male attitudes? The cartoons can be read at two levels, as a straight-up presentation of contrasting views of Canadian life, which Charles and Cynthia Hou have done much to emphasize by choosing cartoons that offer conflicting points of view; or as visual metaphors that can be "read" for "meaning." The visual presentation of countries as women, of French Canadians as happy farmers named "Baptiste", or of businessmen as bloated plutocrats comes to mind. At whatever level, the book is fun to read. It will appeal to both a general audience and to history teachers, for whom the cartoon images offer an exciting way to illustrate Canadian attitudes from times past The House have chosen to present the cartoons without analytical comment, yet an interpretive essay on cartoons as a communication form might have added usefully to our appreciation of their political function. The credits, set off in a separate section at the end of the book, are also rather inaccessible. That said, the book is beautifully produced, and the cartoons selected original and provocative. Great Canadian Political Cartoons belongs in every Canadian history classroom in the country. It will have a prominent place in mine.