<p>The first section of this thesis identifies two schools of economic thought that were prominent between 1923 and the 1960s. Both employed a staples approach to organize, explain and interpret Canada’s history but used different scopes of inquiry, methodologies and time horizons. I call these two schools Innis’ <em>staples thesis</em> and Macintosh’s <em>staple economics</em>. No sooner were these two schools firmly established than the economics profession underwent a fundamental shift. Economic historians abandoned the old Canadian political economy in the 1960s and followed international trends toward increased specialization. Academic economists concentrated on theoretical and deductive methods with little concern for historical time. During this period of rapid transition, Mel Watkins developed a third approach known as the <em>staple theory</em>. If contemporary economists are cognizant of a staples approach, they most likely think about Watkins’ theory which was written during the ascendancy of the ‘new’ economic history in the United States.</p> <p>One of the legacies of the old political economy was the construction of historical data sets, but they are rarely used in contemporary studies. The collection of historical data related to staples activity waned as the focus shifted to the construction of national accounts. The reconstruction of Canada’s trade flows was abandoned. The last five chapters of this thesis remedy this neglect with a new series of trade flows for all British North America from 1829 to 1960. Economic historians will now have a continuous series of meaningful trade statistics to facilitate future research on the role of staples in international economy of British North America. With this information, research can begin to evaluate the long-run evolution of the structure, behaviour and performance of Canada’s external economy from a simple colonial society to a modern industrial nation.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

During the nineteenth century higher education was an important part of the development of upper- and middle-class young men. College did not train young men for a career; rather it educated them in classical subjects and religion. Knowledge of Greek and Latin was considered a distinction of class, while religious training prepared young men for their anticipated role as the spiritual leader of their family. I focused my study of higher education and masculinity on Centre College, founded 1819. Using both school documents and personal papers of Centre students, I have developed a composite of Centre students, their parents, the administration and their attitudes towards manhood.

During the nineteenth century higher education was an important part of the development of upper- and middle-class young men. College did not train young men for a career; rather it educated them in classical subjects and religion. Knowledge of Greek and Latin was considered a distinction of class, while religious training prepared young men for their anticipated role as the spiritual leader of their family. I focused my study of higher education and masculinity on Centre College, founded 1819. Using both school documents and personal papers of Centre students, I have developed a composite of Centre students, their parents, the administration and their attitudes towards manhood.

A respected marine biologist at the University of Jena, Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919) was the most visible proponent of Darwin’s theory of evolution in Germany around the turn of the twentieth century. Alongside his natural-scientific research activities, he attempted to popularise a philosophy that he dubbed ‘Monism’ – which consisted essentially of mid-nineteenth-century mechanistic materialism permeated with elements derived from early-nineteenth-century German Romantic pantheism – and to use this outlook as the basis for a worldwide anticlerical movement. His popular science books were an outstanding success, selling hundreds of thousands of copies throughout the world, but his organisation attracted far fewer adherents. By examining Haeckel’s popular science writings and contemporary reactions to them, especially among lesser-known contemporaries who have received relatively little attention in previous studies, this thesis explores the subjective appeal of Haeckel’s monistic philosophy. Specifically, it investigates the way in which he employed metaphors and visual images to communicate scientific and philosophical concepts, and in so doing seemed to provide his readers with what they had feared lost along with the decline of orthodox religious belief: a feeling of greater purpose, a foundation for ethical behaviour, an appreciation of beauty in the world, and a stable sense of identity. The imagery and metaphors that he employed were open to multiple interpretations, and others saw in them an expression of the destructive modern forces that threatened to bring about social collapse. Paradoxically, the same devices that accounted for Haeckel’s appeal as a popular science writer contributed to the incoherence and fragmentation of his Monism movement. / Thesis (Ph.D, History) -- Queen's University, 2008-01-31 15:39:57.866

This work provides the first ever transnational intellectual history of the globalized notion of esprit de corps, disputedly defined as a sometimes beneficial, sometimes detrimental mutual loyalty shared by the members of a group or larger social body. As a polemical argumentative signifier, ‘esprit de corps’ has played an underestimated role in defining moments of modern Western history, such as the French Revolution, the United States Declaration of Independence, French imperialism, British colonialism, the Dreyfus affair, the World Wars, the rise of administrative nation-states, or the deployment of individualism and corporate capitalism. The birth of the term is evidenced in eighteenth-century France, both in military and political discourse. ‘Esprit de corps’ is shown to be an important matter of political and philosophical debate for major historical agents (d’Alembert, Voltaire, Rousseau, Lord Chesterfield, Bentham, the Founding Fathers, Sieyès, Mirabeau, British MPs, Napoleon, Hegel, Durkheim, Waldeck- Rousseau, de Gaulle, Orwell, Bourdieu, Deleuze…), but also for less renowned authors, scientists, officers, militants, entrepreneurs, administrators, or politicians (e.g. the British Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union). A comparative methodology is proposed, based on the longue durée examination of large corpora of primary sources in French and English, via digitized archives and a focus on explicit mentions of ‘esprit de corps’ in their rhetorical, philosophical, and historical context. The approach is tentatively called ‘histosophy’: the long-term survey of a large issue within a small compass (Walker, 1985), the compass being the invariable observed signifier, and the large issue the multifarious relation between universalism and particularism in the context of globalization. An interpretation is eventually elaborated to account for the fact that ‘esprit de corps’ is today an incantation of widespread global use, especially in corporate discourse, with laudative essentializing denotations.

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A full study of the conception of wilāya in a variety of juridical trends, theological schools, and mystical doctrines across the Islamic world in general, and in the Shīʿa intellectual history in particular, is too ambitious a project to undertake in one thesis. Therefore, the author has chosen to limit herself to considering a handful of intellectual developments in the Shīʿa world from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. She addresses a number of issues by delving into the conceptions of wilāya through the examination and interpretation of key texts. The main interest of the author is to study the influence of ibn ʿArabī’s mysticism, with regard to the conception of wilāya, on his Shīʿa successors and expositors in later centuries. This research also discusses the development and transformation of the conception of wilāya over two hundred years. In a corresponding approach to Akbarīan mysticism, wilāya occupies a central place in Ṣadrīan ḥikma, and in the thought of the ḥakīms of the Schools of Tehran and Qum, as the crystallization of this discipline of philosophy. Wilāya is inseparable from imamate and from the status of imāms, namely the walī, ḥujja, and ghawth. In the esoteric School of Shaykhīsm, the conception of wilāya is overshadowed by concepts such as ẓuhūr (appearance), qīyāmat (Day of Judgement), intiẓār (expectation), al-Qāʾim, and is finally replaced by the doctrine of Rukn-i Rābiʿ. A study and critical analysis of Ayatollah Khomeini’s theory of wilāyat al-faqīh exposes his fascination for the mysticism of ibn ʿArabī. However, the politicization of wilāya in Khomeini’s theory can be regarded as the climax of jurisdictional developments dating back to the writings of the jurists of the early Qajar period. Unlike mysticism, jurisprudence underwent significant changes and revisions in a number of terms, such as wilāya in socio-political affairs. Khomeini’s theory was challenged by his student, Ayatollah Muntaẓirī who revisited it, placing more emphasis on the role of people and their rights in the Islamic Government. Muntaẓirī’s reform movement was similarly transformed by Muhsin Kadivar, who finally rejected the theory of wilāyat al-faqīh in favour of a democratic government.

This dissertation examines the movement for political union that existed in Canada and the United States between 1885 and 1896. During this period the Dominion was plagued by economic malaise, “racial” tension, and regionalism, all of which hindered national growth and the creation of a distinct Canadian nationality. The Republic, meanwhile, experienced substantial economic growth thanks to increasing industrialization, and many Americans sought to expand the territory of their nation. It was in this atmosphere of Canadian political and economic uncertainty and American expansionism that the idea of forming one grand continental republic re-emerged. To provide a more complete understanding of the movement for political union this study examines its emergence, development, and ultimate failure. Although at no time did it become a mass or popular movement, political unionism became an important element in the public discourse in both Canada and the United States. Furthermore, this dissertation shows that political unionism was not only an English-speaking phenomenon, as several of the core group of advocates identified herein were French Canadian, and there was a serious debate about French Canada’s future in North America. Many previous studies that have explored this era in Canadian-American relations have overlooked the significance of the movement for political union, largely by focusing on the tense economic relationship and the debate over free trade. However, as this dissertation argues, economic considerations for political union were secondary amongst its proponents. They did not support political union for personal gain. Rather, supporters of the movement shared a conviction in the need to unite the continent due to a sense of shared racialism and the belief in the superiority of republicanism. This dissertation also offers a new perspective on the core group of advocates of political union. They were not “traitors” who had turned their back on Canada and wished to “sell out” the Dominion to the United States. These figures did not want “annexation”; they desired a true political union.

This thesis traced the development of the concept of creativity from the earliest works in the intellectual history of Western civilization to the late twentieth century. This historical perspective on the concept of creativity served as a backdrop to current views of the concept and as a reference source for recurrent views of the concept and as a reference source for recurrent and essential themes in the progressing debates concerning this issue.

David Jones (1895-1974), the Anglo-Welsh, Roman Catholic, poet, artist, and essayist, believed that Western civilisation was in decline. From his formative experience as a private in the First World War to the harrowing destruction of Western and British culture that he perceived during the Second World War and in its aftermath, Jones shaped his artistic vision of modernity on the basis of a complex and dynamic concept of ancient Rome. Jones developed this vision through his poetry, paintings, inscriptions, essays, interviews and letters over a period which spanned most of his adult life. It was not founded in any form of classical education, but was fashioned from his own experiences, his extensive reading, his conversations with friends, and, most importantly, from the discourses surrounding Rome's relationship with the modern world which were prevalent in his contemporary society. This thesis offers the first sustained study of Jones's reception of Rome and brings together a wide range of published and unpublished material. It situates Jones's vision of Rome within a broad context divided into four central areas of contemporary discourse: British political rhetoric, the cyclical historical movement, the defence of cultural unity and continuity, and the Welsh nationalist movement. Exploring the deep and previously uncharted relevance of Jones's works to twentieth-century British intellectual history reveals the enduring fascination of the Roman analogy as a way to comprehend the crisis of modernity.