Honours Essay notes

[rfmcdonald]

• Thirty Acres describes a civilization (the French Canadian Catholic rural peasantry) that was quite dynamic and resisted liberal industrial capitalism for a relatively long time (until the 1920's) before succumbing.


• Barometer Rising describes two civilizations (Cape Breton Gaeldom and Haligonian upper-class WASP circles) which were not dynamic, which did not differ all that much from the "Ontario/US model" to start with and did not discourage assimilation.


• Surfacing describes a civilization--the Euro-Canadian presence on the Canadian Shield--that has entirely given up on trying to be independent of the core, and is just satiated by being a periphery.