Paperback Oxford Canadian Thesaurus

Chris Simmons is the reference librarian at Queen’s University in
Kingston.

Oxford Companions are designed for interested but not necessarily
specialist readers, and I should state at the outset that I review this
book from a non-specialist perspective.

So far as I am concerned, it fulfils general expectations. Like other
Companions, it is a collection of informative articles on just about all
imaginable topics connected with Canadian history. An obvious
difficulty, of course, is that virtually anything one can think of has a
history of some kind, so the number of potential topics that might be
included here is inexhaustible.

However, editor Gerald Hallowell has in the main done his work well and
made the right choices (though the literary selections are a bit spotty,
and not really necessary, given the existence of The Oxford Companion to
Canadian Literature). While I may not be an expert, I know enough to be
aware that he has often assembled leading authorities to write the
entries—for example, Carl Berger on imperialism, Michael Bliss on the
discovery of insulin, Jack Granatstein on World War II, Desmond Morton
on World War I, Clara Thomas on Anna Jameson and Margaret Laurence,
Germaine Warkentin on various explorers, etc.

Moreover, the book gives every sign of being easy to use. The articles
are clearly written and accessible to all who are likely to consult them
(which is more than can be said about many learned books these days).

Another pleasant feature of this book is that, while it takes its
subject seriously, it doesn’t take it too solemnly. History, as we
know, can in the wrong hands become “dry as dust,” but many of this
volume’s contributors make room for the humorous or the odd. My
favourite is Ged Martin’s final comment on associationist Goldwin
Smith: “Famous for his limp, bony handshake, he was also kind to his
cat.”

Finally, this is a good book for browsers; indeed, thanks to the
entries’ alphabetical arrangement, whimsical browsers can pass without
a pause from “saints and martyrs” to “salmon-canning industry”
to “Salvation Army” to “Sarah Binks.” A rich feast.