Unequal Union: Roots of Crisis in the Canadas, 1815-1873

R. Douglas Francis is a history professor at the University of Calgary
and author of Images of the Canadian West.

Unequal Union: Roots of Crisis in the Canadas, 1815-1873 first appeared in 1968; this recent issue is a reprint of the second edition, which appeared largely unrevised in 1973. Along with the sequel, The Founding of Canada: Beginning to 1815, it is the only available overview Marxist interpretation of these early years of Canadian history. In this respect, although dated, it is an interesting and informative book to read.

The opening sentence of Stanley Ryerson’s first paragraph sets out the direction of his study: “For a quarter of a century after the War of 1812 the British colonies in North America were the scene of acute class and national conflicts.” The class conflict underwent a transformation in the period studied from that of a ruling mercantile-seigneurial minority elite versus a rising lower-class democratic opposition, most evident in the rebellions of 1837 in the Canadas, to a conflict between a new industrial bourgeoisie and a rising labour class in the emerging industrial society of the mid-nineteenth century. The national conflict was between a British-Canadian and a French-Canadian ethnic community, the French Canadians being in Ryerson’s words, “a subject nation.” Another national conflict was underway simultaneously between a British North American colony anxious to remove its colonial vestiges and imperial trappings and a mother country intent upon holding on to them. These themes form the focal point of the study, providing for a stimulating analysis of Canadian history.

Although well-written and still unique, one must question the reprinting of a book so clearly out of date. Since 1968 much first-rate historical research has been done on the subject of class and nation in Canadian history, some of it from the Marxist perspective. This literature somewhat modifies and, in some respects, reinforces Ryerson’s original thesis. Clearly a revised and rewritten edition of the book incorporating this new research would have been more valuable. Better still, a modern Marxist scholar should attempt a contemporary synthesis, taking us beyond the points Ryerson first raised.