search : contact us : about us : site guide : home

  University of British Columbia Press
 Search Our Catalogue
  search by subject

 UBC Press
About UBC Press
Acknowledgements
Conferences & Events
Contact Us
Media Centre
Publishing With UBC Press
Publishers Represented
Staff Directory

 Books
Awards
Catalogues
Forthcoming Titles
How To Order
Recent Reviews
Review Copies
Series

 Join Our Mailing List
Sign Up
Privacy Statement

 ubcpress.ca
About ubcpress.ca
Frequent Questions
Privacy Statement
Site Guide
Website Feedback

 Featured Title
.
Writing British Columbia History, 1784-1958
Chad Reimer  

$85.00 Hardcover
Release Date: 10/10/2009
ISBN: 978-0-7748-1644-1    


$29.95 Paperback
Release Date: 7/1/2010
ISBN: 978-0-7748-1645-8    


216 Pages





OTHER WAYS TO ORDER

About the Book

Captain James Cook first made contact with the area now known as British Columbia in 1778. The colonists who followed soon realized they needed a written history, both to justify the dispossession of Aboriginal peoples but also to formulate an identity for a new settler society.

Writing British Columbia History shows how Euro-Canadian historians, professional and otherwise, accomplished this task, but it also reveals that they struggled with the newness of colonial society and with overlapping, often competing, alliances to the British Empire, the United States, and, after 1871, Canada. Beginning with explorer’s accounts and continuing through to promotional literature, "pioneer" history, and the professionalization of the discipline at the Department of History at the University of British Columbia, Reimer demonstrates that historians eased the tensions in three ways. They defined British Columbia as part of a global British Empire; they incorporated it into an expanding Anglo-Saxon civilization; and they consciously wrote it into the empire of history itself. By doing so, they legitimated their own society at the expense of others.

This sweeping study of the role of history writing in colonialism and nation building will appeal to anyone interested in British Columbia history, the history of the Pacific Northwest, or history writing in Canada.


About the Author(s)

Chad Reimer received his PhD in history from York University and works as an independent historian and author in Chilliwack, BC.


Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1) The Earliest Pages of History

2) Pioneers, Railways, and Civilization: The Late Nineteenth Century

3) A Greater Britain on the Pacific: History in the Edwardian Age

4) The Domain of History: Judge Frederic Howay

5) A Professional Past: The University of British Columbia and Walter Sage

6) W. Kaye Lamb, Margaret Ormsby, and a First Generation of BC Historians

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography of Primary Sources

Index


Reviews

This highly readable book has reshaped the way I think about BC history. Reimer follows five generations of BC historians as they tried to make the province "home" by creating a past that celebrated and justified a "White Man’s Province" dominated by an Anglo elite ... Historians, as Reimer eloquently shows, played an essential role in the colonization of British Columbia and the maintenance of minority rule by a capitalist, Anglo, male elite through the late 20th century. This book is essential for anyone interested in the creation of a past for British Columbia.
- John Sutton Lutz, author of Makúk: A New History of Aboriginal-White Relations


Sample Chapter

Download Front Matter and Chapter One (PDF)


Related Topics

History
BC Studies
Cultural Studies


Other Ways To Order

In Canada, order your copy of Writing British Columbia History, 1784-1958 from UTP Distribution at:

UTP Distribution
5201 Dufferin Street
Toronto, Ontario
M3H 5T8

Phone orders: 1(800)565-9523 or (416)667-7791
Fax orders: 1(800)221-9985 or (416)667-7832
Email: utpbooks@utpress.utoronto.ca

Ordering information for customers outside Canada


© 2001 UBC Press
2029 West Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, V6T 1Z2
t. 604.822.5959 | f. 604.822.6083 | e. frontdesk@ubcpress.ca