Memoirs of a Less Travelled Road: A Historian's Life

Ashley Thomson is a full librarian at Laurentian University and co-editor or co-author of nine books, most recently Margaret Atwood: A Reference Guide, 1988-2005.

Before historian Marcel Trudel arrived on the scene in 1945, the typical
history of Quebec was written as an undocumented story intended to
illustrate the province’s romantic, Catholic, and (after the British
conquest) humiliated past. Trudel produced a steady stream of monographs
that challenged this picture. In 1960, he shocked readers when he
disclosed that slavery existed in New France. In addition to 35 books,
he produced a collection of sources and an atlas. Further, he was the
founding coeditor of the magisterial Dictionnaire biographique du Canada
(1961–65). Having started his career in Quebec, Trudel completed it in
Ontario, and may truly be said to be the founder of two history
departments (that of Laval University and the University of Ottawa).

This flawlessly translated autobiography concentrates on Trudel’s
life before his move to Ontario in 1965, the period in which he was most
“out of sync” with his environment. With humor and a compelling
style, he recounts the dissolution of his large family after the death
of his mother, his adoption, his stay in an orphanage, his education in
a variety of religious institutions, and finally graduate school and
work in the fledgling Department of History at Laval. This splendid book
deserves a place in libraries and the personal collections of every
historian in Canada.