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Distributed for University of British Columbia Press

Dominion of Race

Rethinking Canada’s International History

Distributed for University of British Columbia Press

Dominion of Race

Rethinking Canada’s International History

How has race shaped Canada’s international encounters and its role in the world? In Dominion of Race, leading scholars demonstrate the necessity of placing race at the centre of the narratives of Canadian international history. Destabilizing conventional understandings of Canada in the world, they expose how race-thinking has informed priorities and policies, positioned Canada in the international community, and contributed to a global order rooted in racial beliefs. By demonstrating that race is a fundamental component of Canada and its international history, this book calls for reengagement with the histories of those marginalized in, or excluded from, the historical record.

332 pages | © 2017


Table of Contents

Introduction: Writing Race into Canada’s International History / Laura Madokoro and Francine McKenzie

A Provocation: Anti-Asian Exclusion and the Making and Unmaking of White Supremacy in Canada / Henry Yu

1 The Limits of “Brotherly Love”: Rethinking Canada-Caribbean Relations in the Early Twentieth Century / Paula Hastings

2 Asian Canadians and the First World War: Challenging White Supremacy / John Price

3 Race, Empire, and World Order: Robert Borden and Racial Equality at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 / Francine McKenzie

4 Language, Race, and Power: French Canada’s Relationship with Haiti in the 1930s and 1940s / Sean Mills

5 Race, Gender, and International “Relations”: African Americans and Aboriginal People on the Margins in Canada’s North, 1942–48 / P. Whitney Lackenbauer

6 Race, the Commonwealth, and the United Nations: From Imperialism to Internationalism in Canada, 1940–60 / Dan Gorman

7 “Belated Signing”: Race-Thinking and Canada’s Approach to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees / Laura Madokoro

8 Romanticism and Race: Escott Reid, the Department of External Affairs, and the Sundering of Canada-India Relations, 1952–57 / Ryan Touhey

9 “Awakening Africa”: Race and Canadian Views of Decolonizing Africa/ Kevin A. Spooner

10 Crisis of the Nation: Race and Culture in the Canada-Quebec-France Triangle of the 1960s / David Meren

11 “Red Indians” in Geneva, “Papuan Headhunters” in New York: Race, Mental Maps, and Two Global Appeals in the 1920s and 1960s / David Webster

Conclusion: Race and the Future of Canadian International History / David Meren

Selected Bibliography; Index

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