The Art of Nation Building: Pageantry and Spectacle at Quebec's Tercentenary by H.V. Nelles

This book opens with a panoramic and exciting description of the events and celebrations around Quebec's Tercentenary summer in 1908. In prose both purple and exhilarating, Nelles recreates an image for the reader of the splendour of the celebration, the breathless enjoyment of the participants, spectators, and organizers, and the overwhelming nature of the events. This description is supplemented with a variety of images (of varying quality), giving the reader a better understanding of what those viewers would have seen in the celebration allegedly of the founding of Quebec, but actually of the attempts of Canada to build a nation in the naive Edwardian period. It's almost disappointing to realise how the vision of Governor General Earl Grey was ultimately dashed by the reality of Canadian society and the crush of history.
( Read more... )