Essays in the History of Canadian Law Two Islands Newfoundland And Prince Edward Island Book

Pretty good for a history book.

This book was originally published as 13 different books, first appearing sporadically between 1927 and 1948. This is a one-volume abridged edition, with each of the original volumes cut to about half its original size. Even at that, it could get boring in places, as history books sometimes do.

However, this book has much to recommend it, not the least of which being that it was intended to be, as the title indicates, a history of the American people, and how they lived. It covers mostly from the time the first Europeans arrived in North America, with a small section attempting to describe the lives of the Native Americans. However, as the source material for the Native Americans is from the annals of early European adventurers and settlers, even this part doesn’t really go much farther back than the first arrival of the white man.

The early volumes, however, do describe somewhat the lives of the Spanish settlers in Mexico and the American Southwest, and the early French adventurers in Canada and along the Mississippi. After that, it is mostly a chronicle of the English settlement, although the various authors do pay more than usual attention to the increasing number of immigrants from other parts of the world as time went on.

I was a little disappointed that so little attention went into describing the life of the average American during any of the various periods covered in the books. But, of course, what would constitute an average American? They do, however, make use of various journals and diaries (including those of some people who were later politically important or otherwise famous), census statistics, church records, and probated wills to indicate such things as common diseases and how they affected the people, prevailing religious opinions in the various areas of the country, and the types of furniture and houses owned by people in different parts of the country.

What this book doesn’t have, that is particularly refreshing, is a lot of political history. There is no extensive coverage of every presidential campaign and no exhaustive rehash of the various maneuverings of Congress. While there is some description of the tensions leading up to the Civil War, the excruciating details of how the various compromises were used to delay it are mostly passed over lightly.

There is, on the other hand, much more reporting on various reform movements, including the anti-slavery movement, but also including the Temperance movement and the Women Suffrage movement, as well as efforts to improve the lives of the poor. It seems these campaigns went on for much longer than conventional histories would have you think. Interestingly, since this history only included up to the late 1920s, some of the things we consider major landmarks of history, such as the depression, the end of Prohibition, and World War II are not included in it at all. The stock market crash of 1929 is barely mentioned once or twice, but not in a way that would indicate how serious it was to prove to be.

There is extensive coverage of the labor movement – much more than you normally get in a history book – right alongside the anti-trust movement. Though the Russian Revolution happened during World War I, the terrible stigma attached to Communism and Socialism had not developed to any great extent yet, and the movements for reducing poverty and empowering workers are mostly viewed as positive.

Most of the various authors discuss culture and the arts in their assigned periods. It is worth noting that many of them had, and were not afraid to express, strong opinions on such matters as what is/was good taste and what isn’t.

In a section at the end, the editor reports on how the original books were received when they were published, pointing out that most of them were, along with the original editors, “progressive” in their thinking, and that many of their fellow historians, by the time the books were published, highly criticized this stance.