Fri May 7 detailed schedule

The Occasional Distant Rumble of Guns: The Second World War in British Columbia’s Historiography

Abstract

The Second World War looms large in Canadian historiography and in the popular memory as the ‘Good War’, shaping powerfully collective understandings of national identity and the shape of modern Canada.  British Columbians participated extensively in this conflict, contributing more service personnel per capita than any other province, and was also the only part of Canada to directly experience the war in the Pacific.  Yet despite the intensity of the war experience in BC, it is largely invisible in both the popular memory and in the scholarly literature. The only exception to this rule is the appalling treatment of interned Japanese immigrants and Japanese Canadian citizens.  This important subject undeniably deserves extensive treatment, and it is the one topic that has received it.  But beyond this, BC historiography is remarkably quiet on the Second World War, a thorough reading of the historiography is only disturbed by the occasional distant rumble of guns.  The result is a major hole in our understanding of the province’s history, with those fragments that do touch on the war largely disconnected.  This paper seeks to survey the historiographical landscape and begin the process of synthesising the disparate pieces on the war and integrating the war experience into the BC narrative.

Presenter(s)

Scott Sheffield, University of the Fraser Valley

<< Back to Fri May 7 detailed schedule