Pocket History Sophisticated, Concise

Nova Scotia

A Pocket History

by John Reid  

John Reid, a history professor at Saint Mary’s University and a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, has been a leading figure in the re-examination of the history of the Atlantic provinces that has been ongoing for a generation. Reid’s many books and articles have ranged from studies of Maine and the Maritimes in the 17th and 18th centuries to a massive two-volume history of Mount Allison University.

Reid brings his formidable learning and gift for writing to bear upon the difficult task of compressing the history of Nova Scotia into a book of six chapters and 160 pages. In Nova Scotia: A Pocket History (Fernwood, 160 pages, $17.95) he has been remarkably successful, developing in a short space a sophisticated and coherent account of the province’s past.

The first two chapters, Mi’kma’ki and Acadie, deal with the Mi’kmaq and the Acadians, peoples who predated Nova Scotia and were entities in their own right. “They still are,” writes Reid. These chapters carry through the story of the Mi’kmaq and the Acadians from their beginnings to the present. Reid then explains how Nova Scotia emerged from its origins in Mi’kma’ki and Acadie, beginning with Sir William Alexander’s failed attempt to found a Scottish colony between 1621-32, which gave our province its name and coat of arms. Although each chapter is organized chronologically, he follows for the most part an analytical approach; his treatment of complex questions, such as the Acadian deportation, slavery and the plight of free black Loyalists, is concise without being simplistic.

The author is no romantic, emphasizing that in reality Nova Scotia never experienced a “golden age” although the mid-19th century was comparatively prosperous. However, the province failed to make a satisfactory transition from the “age of sail” to an industrial economy. Competition from better capitalized firms in Ontario and Quebec, as well as high railway freight rates, stifled a promising manufacturing sector, resulting in economic depression and a wave of out-migration after the First World War. Not surprisingly, regional grievances led to the formation of a Maritimes Rights Movement in the early 1920’s.

The movement had only limited success. During the Second World war the federal government, under the directions of C.D.Howe, minister of munitions and supply, heavily subsidized Ontario steel production at the expense of the Maritimes, on the grounds that industry must be located in the central Canadian “heartland” rather than on the periphery.

Howe decreed that the Sydney steel plant should be utilized, in his words, “to the minimum extent possible even if we have to buy steel from the United States (p.137);” he diverted shipbuilding and repair work from the Maritimes to Quebec, against the wishes of our wartime allies concerned about the annual freezing of the St. Lawrence.

Nova Scotia: A Pocket History is an insightful book, which can be studied with profit by everyone, whatever the extent of their knowledge of Nova Scotian history. My only disappointment is that it lacks an index, which is useful even in a volume of this length, particularly such a good one.-Henry Roper (President of the Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society), The Nova Scotian, Sunday November 22, 2009

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