New Books In Intellectual History

In 1867, Canada was a small country flanking the St. Lawrence River and Great Lakes, but within a few years its claims to sovereignty spanned the continent. With Confederation had come the vaunting ambition to create an empire from sea to sea. How did Canada lay claim to so much land so quickly? Land and the Liberal Project: Canada’s Violent Expansion (UBC Press, 2024) by Dr. Éléna Choquette examines the political, legal, and rhetorical tactics deployed by Canadian officialdom in the cause of nation making, from the first articulation of expansionism in the 1857 Gradual Civilization Act to the consolidation of authority over the prairies following the North-West Resistance of 1885. Drawing on numerous archival sources, Dr. Choquette contends that although the dominion purported to favour a gentle absorption of Indigenous lands through constitutionalism, administration, and law, it resorted to police repression and military force in the face of Indigenous resistance. She investigates the liberal concept that