Some are mathematicians, some are carpenter's wives...

There are worse things to be! The Jerry Garcia Band performing Dylan's "Tangled up in Blue," via Brad de Lo...

No stranger fate

...for some of us, than to find oneself living in a Philip K. Dick ficti...

Known planets: "This is an exciting time."

If only more people would notice! From xkcd.com:...

Happy War of 1812 Bicentennial Day!

I guess it's hap...

So much for the laws of arms

The Chronicle of the Good Duke reporting on the English siege of Nantes, 1380-1: And some of those in the [French] garrison were wounded but none of them died and none was taken except Robert Guy of Riom and when he was disarmed the English were bemoaning their loss and did not put a guard on him so Robert Guy left them and went to the ditches where he rejoined the companions...

Congratulations, students!

Let me express my regrets for not being at yesterday's NU convocation, the one for historians. I was out of town (and still am). Earning a university degree requires a lot of work and a lot of determination. For all the current cynicism about the value of higher education, it can be a rich experience -- inside and outside the classroom. I hope it was for y...

Upper Canada before 1812

Some more analysis by Alan Taylor of Upper Canada "before the war." To suppress sedition,, the government sought to control the flow of public information. In a stark contrast with the republic, the British restricted Postal Service in Upper Canada to official dispatches and to the letters of favored merchants. An American settler described Upper Canada as the land of "no mail,...

Results of that nasty little war

Of 1812, that is.Nasty or not, it was important.Before the war, the geographical and legal boundaries of the Anglophone world were ambiguous; lots of people were more concerned about the radical Democratic-Republican or conservative Tory or Federalist next door than they were about people who lived on the other side of the ill-defined border. Not to mention all those radical Irishmen...

The archenemy of mankind

Not to forget "this great deflowerer of the virginity of republics." Both descriptions of Emperor Napoleon by US representative John Randolph in 1812 while debating a declaration of war against Britain in 1812. It's worth remembering that Napoleon was Hitler for many people of...

Alan Taylor on "Loyalist" Upper Canada

In Upper Canada most of the common people felt ambivalent about taking sides in the war. Drawn to the colony by low taxes and cheap land, the American-born majority had scant interest in politics and a great dread of war. Localist, pragmatic, and self-interested they balked at making sacrifices for any larger political cause, whether for an empire or a republic. The common folk...

What a nasty little war

As I read Taylor's the Civil War of 1812, the question in my mind becomes not was this an important war? But rather why would anyone want to be associated with either side in this war? It's a nasty war where most of those in arms are there for the loot while those who have some principles or goals have unadmirable ones. The Americans who are most interested in the conquest of upper...

The Civil War of 1812 by Alan Taylor

I am reading Alan Taylor's recent book on the war of 1812, and it is excellent. It is a finely written narrative history that does an excellent job of describing people and situations, and also very good as an analytical treatment of the war. One of the characteristic features of this book is that it focuses on Upper Canada, much my surprise. It is in Upper Canada, today's Ontario,...

Seen on the Detroit River -- the Mississagi

Built in 1943 and still going stro...

How important was the War of 1812?

It is easy to be snarky about the War of 1812.  Someone on the radio today did precisely what I have done in the past -- compare the North American war to the invasion of Russia.  I always follow that quip up by referring "of course" to the fact that the war was a real turning point for Canada.But today I have reason to wonder.  I was in a university library looking...

Warrior nation?

That's the image our current Prime Minister is promoting for Canada. More realistic is John Moore's take, the same guy who took on "entitlement" in Quebec politics recently. Again from the National Post, with thanks to Phil Paine: But is Vimy really the best of Canada? Does our modern identity and national purpose hinge on the harrowing slaughter of our citizens on a foreign...