Ian McKay (1) (1953–)

I wanted to like this book- I took a course years ago about burial practices and learned about why military cemeteries all had identical stones (to create the image that all the dead were the same, identical “sacrifices” and this not worth grieving in singular thus send your sons to war to the great cause of freedom, etc)- so I wanted to read about the mythology around Vimy and the way Canada has created this image of how ww1 created us as a country, blah blah blah. I’m a suspicious sort and so had my doubts anyway- it all seemed too much PR for a terribly wasteful fight for very little gain. Still, countries need foundation myths, I suppose and hey, what better than the horrible deaths of young men to found a place upon?
So when I saw this I was eager for better understanding. The first chapters laid out the argument, and then the rest of the book devolved into messy circuits through history, circling back and throwing in bits of stories and dropping names with not a thing to hang them on. I quickly became confused and had to give up.
A good editor could have fixed this, put together a more coherent argument and/or history of this time. At present it is almost unreadable.
It also falls into the sad trap of thinking that only men and generals have any importance in the creation of myths. I would LOVE to read how women were persuaded to send their sons to be perished. There’s a mention of the poor woman who lost five sons in the war and gosh, she got a medal. Made me nauseous, that. Did they support her in her old age? Did they support any of the returning soldiers?
Perhaps that is a foundation myth we should promote instead- the was we eventually managed to create a social safety net. In these times where that is at risk of being lost (it is already cut and bleeding), we could focus on our history of working together instead of gathering to kill people. Heaven knows we need a refocus. And fewer graves of people who think they are “fighting for Canada and democracy”.… (mere)

Ian McKay does a fairly effective job mapping out the construction of the intellectual and political transformations of the Canadian left. Operating within a consciously Gramscian framework he attempts to map out the period as a sort of historical bloc, to use Gramsci's terms, capturing the major intellectual influences, particularly the influence of social darwinist thought as well as the influence of Marxism. The text also does a good job of mapping out the shifting economic terrain of the country, and the various attempts on the part of Canadian radicals to explain those transformations. It's a valuable resource. However, I wouldn't call it an exciting read. The detail that McKay puts into describing the various debates and disputes within Marxist grouplets can often be a bit dry. I can't imagine turning to this for pleasure reading, but it certainly is a valuable resource.… (mere)