The Unwritten Rules of History

Tag: imperialism

Hurtful Histories: Louis Riel and Why Accuracy Matters

Header Image Louis Riel

If you follow me on Twitter, you know that I was recently talking about the Louis Riel podcast episode from Stuff You Missed in History. This blog post is based off of that original Twitter essay.

Special thanks to Krystl Raven, Catherine Ulmer, and Melissa Shaw for their help reviewing this blog post, and also to Krystl Raven and Adam Gaudry for reading recommendations on this subject! Finally, a big thank you to my friends on Facebook, who insisted that I needed to write this post.

As I was getting ready for bed the other night, I received a notification that a podcast that I occasionally listen to, Stuff You Missed in History Class, had a new episode. I clicked over to see what it was, and immediately felt uneasy. The subject was Louis Riel. Not that there is a problem with the subject, but in most cases, the history of Louis Riel is handled poorly.

I do want to make it clear here that I’m not trying to pick on Stuff You Missed in History Class. To be fair, the hosts of the show do not claim to be historians. And the show is not intended to be academically rigorous. It is for entertainment value, though the hosts do try their best to be accurate and provide a list of their sources.

However — and it is a big however — I believe that they failed in their due diligence to ensure that they accurately and fairly represented this particular subject, especially given the sensitive and political nature of it. And I know they can do better; I’ve listened to some great and well-sourced podcast episodes from this show (like their series on Redlining or their “Unearthed” episodes!) But, if you’re using a public platform to explain and disseminate information about history, the onus is on you to present your information accurately and fairly.

This blog post is not a re-telling of the history of Louis Riel. Rather, I focus on some of the major errors in the podcast episode and the ramifications of these mistakes. You may think that this is just another historian griping about some non-historians being inaccurate about random obscure facts that no one else cares about, but perpetuating certain dominant historical narrative can do great harm.

 

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Best New Articles from March 2017

Best New Articles March 2017

 

Because, let’s face it – who has time to catch up on all the journal articles published in Canadian history?

Welcome back to the Best New Articles series, where each month, I post a list of my favourite new articles! Don’t forget to also check out my favourites from previous months, which you can access by clicking here.

This month I read articles from:

Quick note: As I’ve mentioned previously, some of these journals place a hold on releasing their material to non-subscribers. This hold can range anywhere from 6 months to 2 years. Since I would like to be as inclusive and comprehensive as possible when reporting on new publications, I will include new issues as they become available, in cases when they there is a hold. So, if you see journal issues that look old or out of place, that’s why.

Here are my favourites:

 

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Why Do We Celebrate Victoria Day: An Exercise in Frustration

What is the history of Victoria Day?

Victoria Day – it sounds like a pretty straightforward holiday. And you’d think that it would have a relatively straightforward history. At least that what I thought when I decided to write a blog post about Victoria Day. And boy, was I wrong. This entire week has been an exercise in frustration. But that’s actually normal. A good historian can never assume that a particular subject is going to be a no-brainer, since sometimes the simplest questions have the most complex answers. And sometimes, when you’re a historian, even if you ask all the right questions, all you get is a week of abject chaos. Because that’s how history works – its messy, complicated, and sometimes, the answers just aren’t there. So in today’s blog post, while I will talk about the history of Victoria Day, I’m also going to talk about realities of doing history.

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