The Hero and the Historians

"Cartier is one of those rare heroes who have figured in both French- and English-speaking representations of the past. By showing the different ways this came about and the different purposes for which Cartier has been made to serve, this important and engaging book connects two historiographies within Canada as it speaks to issues of relevance to an international audience."- H.V. Nelles, L.R. Wilson Professor of Canadian History, McMaster University, and author of The Art of Nation-Building: Pageantry and Spectacle at Quebec's TercentenaryHistorians have long engaged in passionate debate about collective memory and the building of national identities. Alan Gordon focuses on one national hero - Jacques Cartier - to explore how notions about the past have been created, passed on through the generations, and used to present particular ideas about the world in English- and French-speaking Canada. He reveals that the cult of celebrity surrounding Cartier by the mid-nineteenth century reflected a particular understanding of history, one which accompanied the arrival of modernity in North America. This new sensibility shaped the political and cultural currents of nation building in Canada. Cartier was a point of contact between English and French Canadian nationalism, but the nature of that contact had profound limitations.Alan Gordon is an associate professor in the Department of History at the University of Guelph.