Paul-André Linteau. Une Histoire de Montréal. Montréal, Boréal, 2017. 360 pages

Recently retired after an illustrious career, Paul-André Linteau offers us a repackaged interpretation of the history of Montreal. He first published Histoire de Montréal depuis la Conféderation back in 1992 and followed this up with a Brève histoire de Montréal which covered the pre-Confederation period as well. Une Histoire de Montréal, pitched to a general audience, represents a hybrid of the two. Linteau doesn’t hide that this is basically a new and improved edition and that the reader will be in familiar territory. We shouldn’t, therefore, deplore that he recycled many parts of his 1992 synthesis, which was to be expected. The problem, to me, is the overall narrative remains very much unchanged after 25 years. If one can say that the book’s archival erudition is commendable, its ethnocentricity and celebratory arc may be said to be its greatest weaknesses. Linteau is a pioneer of Montreal studies. He not only wrote on the city’s suburbs (Maisonneuve) but also on some its liveliest streets (Sainte-Catherine street) as well as lost neighborhoods (Faubourg à M’lasse, Goose Village). His work brought him some of the highest academic distinctions in Quebec, including the prestigious Léon-Gérin prize, in 2012. He his considered one of the most remarkable historians of his generation, someone who has shaped our understanding of the past through specialized publications and, perhaps more importantly, pedagogical contributions such as exhibits and a textbook. Linteau’s influence in the field makes it even more pressing to address his global theoretical approach and methodology. Linteau, whose career started in the 1960s at a moment of great nationalist concerns and political upheaval, was always keen to separate his political opinions from his scientific research. He advocated for a social history based on facts and figures. Moreover, he invited his peers to look at history differently, enlarging the scope of their inquiry by including neglected sources on popular and labour classes. He belonged to a generation that wanted to look at history “from below” and move it away from the traditional political history focused on the Canadian elites. For roughly 30 years francophone Quebec historiography was dominated by social history, only to be challenged in the early 2000s by a version of cultural history which heavily borrowed from social history. This social history might have been welcomed in the 1970s, but I fear that it has now rendered all the services it can give and has exhausted its potential. A review of Une Histoire de Montréal constitutes a good opportunity to underline some of the blind spots that Linteau’s perspective continues to carry notwithstanding its claims of inclusiveness. I may sound harsh. But look at the evidence. In Linteau “new and improved” edition of his 1992 book, Montreal is still “heroically” founded in 1642. Except for four pages on the “pre- history” of indigenous peoples, this is where the story begins. These opening pages demand some hard questions. Is pre-history still a term that we should be using uncritically in this day and age? It is highly racialized. Then, the reader is once again told, with confidence, that the original inhabitants of the area “mysteriously disappeared” after Jacques Cartier’s initial voyages, and so the Europeans occupied an area that was already emptied of its original inhabitants. It had become a “no man’s land”. This is, of course, a convenient narrative that sets up French Canadians to become the first people of this part of the St. Lawrence Valley. It is also a claim that is highly contested by the Mohawk people. Yet the reader remains unaware of these public debates. Here the Iroquois are the aggressors: the …