As the Tsunami of Histories of Atlantic and Liberal Revolutions Wash up in Upper Canada: Worries from a Colonial Shore – Part One

Abstract

In two parts, this article reviews the unusually large number of books about Upper Canada (1791–1841), the British colony that became the province of Ontario, published since 2010. Non‐national approaches, especially Atlantic world but borderlands and British imperial as well, are prevalent. In particular, Atlantic history's interest in the age of revolution has dovetailed with Ian McKay's call to adopt a liberal order framework. Yet many of these works struggle to incorporate Upper Canada in ways that do not cast it as an anomalous or anachronistic space defined by its awkward relationship to a master narrative or that do not re‐inscribe older national narratives by which Upper Canada masquerades as the nascent nation. At the same time, claims to have adopted a novel perspective have tended to divert attention from existing scholarship on closely related themes, especially work on the colony's legal history. Interest in Atlantic and liberal revolutions has brought renewed attention to Upper Canada but not always in helpful ways.