Monday, June 6, 2016

OH CANADA!

The Dawn of Canadian History: A Chronicle of Aboriginal Canada and the coming of the White Man (illustrated edition) (The Chronicles of Canada Book 1)The Dawn of Canadian History: A Chronicle of Aboriginal Canada and the coming of the White Man (illustrated edition) by Stephen Butler Leacock (1869 - 1944)
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Harken ye to the very dawn of mankind!

...in Canada.

There's no "big bang", no great revelations, just a few minor ones, which are interesting in their own right. I'm always happy to read and reread about the Norsemen in America stories of which maybe one day we'll know the whole truth. I hoped for and expected more about the Inuit culture, but didn't get much here.

Just when I was about finished I discovered the author, Stephen Leacock died in 1944. I looked this up because I was beginning to notice that some of the information in this book was only marginally correct or flat out wrong (The most obvious example: he was of a time in which misinformation was spread about the ancients believing that the world was flat.) That cast doubt upon everything I was reading and I felt I had to be on my toes. However, that's not a bad thing. We should all be more cautious about what we're reading (I'm looking at you, people who get their politics from memes posted to Facebook!).

Regardless, there's plenty of solid history here about Canada's beginnings and I feel I have a slightly stronger grasp on the subject, and it's written in a readable style, which can't always be said about histories.

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