Ken Hanley posted a negative review of David Bercuson's work yesterday on the net. I would like to qualify somewhat this view. Bercuson did some quite excellent work early in his career. He worked with Kenneth McNaught,a well respected social democratic historian, in his PhD thesis on the Winnipeg General Strike. His book on the One Big Union _Fools and Wisemen_, though not without problems, is still a very good book. I contributed to his collection on Canadian federalism, more years ago than I want to mention, though I still think the volume is worth reading. (Hey, naked promotionism!). However, I think his more recent work is rightwing, nativist (in the worst sence) and anti-intellectual. I consider it rather sad to see the degeneration of a rather accomplished scholar to a kind of narrow "reformer". But then, I have been told that the whole history department at Calgary (devastated by cutbacks) has been reduced to a department of regimental military historians celebrating death and gore in the past, and ignoring society, past and present. In sorrow, Paul Phillips
