Lord Durham's Report: Text Abridged by Gerald M. Craig (Volume 208) (Carleton Contemporary Series) - Softcover

Craig, Gerald M.; Ajzenstat, Janet; Laforest, Guy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0773530010 ISBN 13: 9780773530010

Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2006

Synopsis

In his famous 1839 call to reform, John George Lambton, Earl of Durham, recommended that Upper and Lower Canada be accorded responsible government by uniting the two provinces under a single legislative assembly - a union which would also bring about the assimilation of the French-Canadians. The Report has been criticized ever since - from British imperialists who found it dangerously liberal to French Canadians who despised Durham for his presumed racism. This new edition of Gerald Craig's abridgement retains his 1963 introduction and adds essays that debate Durham's political assumptions and goals, re-examine the philosophical and historical context in which the Report was created, and review the Report's reception and influence. Janet Ajzenstat reconsiders the report in the context of nineteenth-century debates about the relation between culture and political institutions, arguing that Durham should be seen as a progressive universalist opposed to the divisions of race and creed who wanted to give more freedom to French- and English-Canadians alike. Guy Laforest re-examines the report in terms of British liberal imperialism and twentieth-century English-Canadian perspectives to argue that Durham was a one-sided sociologist and the first in long line who used liberalism for imperialist purposes.

About this title

About the Author

Janet Ajzenstat is professor emeritus, political science, McMaster University.
Guy Laforest is professor of political science, Université de Laval.

Edition details

• Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0773530010
• ISBN 13: 9780773530010
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 262