The Other Quiet Revolution: National Identities in English Canada, 1945-71

In the twenty years following the Second World War, representations of national identity in anglophone Canada underwent a deep transformation. Ethnic definitions of Canadian identity gave way to a rights-based concept of citizenship. The Other Quiet Revolution traces this under-examined cultural transformation woven through key developments in the formation of Canadian nationhood, from the 1946 Citizenship Act and the 1956 Suez crisis to the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (1963-970) and the adoption of the federal multiculturalism policy in 1971. In this elegant work, José Igartua analyzes editorial opinion, political rhetoric, history textbooks, and public opinion polls to show how Canada’s self-conception as a British country extended into the 1950s. In the decade that followed, however, the British definition of Canada dissolved. Struggles with bilingualism and biculturalism, as well as Quebec’s constitutional demands, helped to fashion new representations of national identity in English-speaking Canada based on the civic principle of equality. With its sophisticated conceptual framework and systematic approach to understanding the discourse of Canadian collective identity, The Other Quiet Revolution will appeal to readers interested in Canadian identity and nationalism and to general readers of Canadian history.