As Canadians prepare to celebrate the nation’s 141st anniversary on July 1, Trent University professor and Canadian Studies department chair Dr. Bryan Palmer is tackling the Canadian identity in a forthcoming book about the radical events of the 1960s.

“Through my research I have found that the social upheavals in the 1960s left people questioning what Canada was. During this period Canadians acknowledged differences throughout society and began to embrace views that alternative ways of living were not only acceptable, but actually lauded by some and pursued as a positive development,” explained Prof. Palmer. “The result was that the old settled understanding of Canada faded.”

An award-winning scholar, Prof. Palmer has focused much of his recent scholarship on the 1960s resulting in a second-year Canadian Studies/History course at Trent University dedicated to the subject and a forthcoming new book tentatively entitled Canada's Tumultuous 1960s: The Ironies of Identity in a Rebellious Era to be released in March 2009.

Prof. Palmer described his book as having two main purposes. The first is to outline some of the developments of the 1960s, including not only its radical features, but also many of its characteristics, personalities, and events. His book examines several notable events of the decade, including the rise of a New Left and student upheavals, Quebec's nationalist upsurge, the emergence of a militant Red Power aboriginal movement, Cold War fears, the Munsinger spy-sex scandal and the rise of Trudeau and intellectual figures such as Marshall McLuhan. The second objective of his book is to try to make it clear that this decade of change was more than what Prof. Palmer calls “a blip on the radar screen of national development.”

According to Prof. Palmer, “prior to the 1960s there was a settled sense of what Canada was; it was a white settler dominion that was an extension of the British Empire into the New World. While French Canada was often represented as being integral to Canadian identity, and the two nations thesis floated out there, in actuality prior to the 1960s the reality was 'one Canada' and it was British. There was no real grasp of First Nations. Immigration changed all of this, but so too did other things. They extend well past government-directed policies of multiculturalism. The irony of all of this, however, was that no new identity of Canadianism managed to replace what was lost. And so,” he asserts, “we live, to this day, with the uncertainty of what it is to be Canadian.”

Prof. Palmer, who recently won the Wallace K. Ferguson Book Award from the Canadian Historical Association, is considered one of Canada’s leading figures, nationally and internationally, in the fields of labour and social history. He also holds a Tier One Canada Research Chair at Trent University, one of the most prestigious research appointments in the country.