Review by Choice Review
Day's book, originally his dissertation, studies Canada's multicultural policy from its roots in New France to the present day. The scope is vast. Day is clearly more familiar with the present than the past, but to his credit he traces the long tradition of coming to terms with the "other" back to a European mind set that began with the Greeks. Herodotus first defined an ethnic group by its customs, pointing out differences with the Greek norm; Aristotle added a racialist element. Before the British conquest, Quebec policy was assimilationist with tractable Indians, genocidal with hostile ones. The British dilemma was more complex: for them the "others" became the Canadiens, the Indians, and eventually the Americans. Once Canada's west filled up with diverse aliens, new "others" required new policies, which developed eventually into multiculturalism. None of these policies worked, but the discourse continued, and the government refused to let matters take their course. Day sometimes sees method where there was ad hoc solution: the 1756 Acadian expulsion, attributed to British policy, was executed by New England militia immediately after General Braddock's debacle at Fort Duquesne; Britain was informed after the event. Probable cause: fear, which in fact has informed all Canadian approaches to the "other." Upper-division undergraduate and graduate collections. J. A. S. Evans; emeritus, University of British Columbia
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
