Roasting Chestnuts: The Mythology of Maritime Political Culture

Agar Adamson is the author of Letters of Agar Adamson, 1914–19 and former chair of the Department of Political Science at Acadia University in Nova Scotia.

This collection of essays on the political culture of the Maritime
provinces by political scientist Ian Stewart sets out to show that the
stereotypical view of the Maritimes as a “premodern hinterland in
which corrupt practices and traditional loyalties continue to
predominate” is no longer accurate.

Political culture is a phenomenon that is difficult to perceive
coherently. Each observer may see the concept in a different light and
through his or her own telescope of preconceived political landscapes.
For example, those who subscribe to a belief in the centrality of the
United Empire Loyalist tradition will object to Stewart’s views on the
mythology of the Loyalist legacy. Certainly, some of Stewart’s
observations (many of which are based on survey data) are controversial,
and only time will tell if his assumptions are indeed correct. However,
his book for the most part reaches its objective, and is a welcome and
useful addition to political-science literature on the Maritimes.