Review of
SEAN MILLS’
"The Empire Within: Postcolonial Thought and Political Activism in Sixties Montreal"
"The following people are to be released from their captors. In Northern Ireland, the seven members of the New Provo Front. In Canada, the five imprisoned leaders of Liberte de Quebec. In Sri Lanka, the nine members of the Asian Dawn movement…” (Die Hard)
There is no doubt that Sean Mills would have felt a flash of amusement at this mention of the (incorrectly identified) FLQ, uttered by super-villain Hans Gruber in his list of demands, in 1988's Die Hard, lumped together with other such revolutionary entities. Indeed, in The Empire Within: Postcolonial Thought and Political Activism in Sixties Montreal, Sean Mills attempts to argue that revolutionary trends and theories in various regions of the world made their way across the globe, bypassing borders and mutually influencing the areas that they managed to reach. More specifically, his intention is to analyze this notion with respects to the situation in Montreal during the 1960's and early 1970's. He does so after outlining three purposes which his work aims to address.
Firstly, Mills states his desire to bring about an alternative way of observing Montreal's "political upheavals" during the aforementioned time period, whereby events on an international scale are taken into account. Secondly, he wishes to make clear the ways in which the ideas of various groups and movements were inter-linked and influenced each other. Lastly, speaking in broader terms, he voices his aspiration that studies in this field should henceforth avoid concentrating merely on North American and European influence, but also consider the
importance of the Third World when analyzing the culture of revolution in Montreal. (Mills, 9, 10)
What is strikingly obvious upon reading Mills' work is that the amount of research that was undertaken on the part of its author is staggering. With a bibliography whose length surpasses most of the book's chapters, as well as being one that is chock full of first-rate sources, one would be hard-pressed to doubt the quality of evidence that is used to support the content of the text. Every aspect of Montreal's revolutionary behaviour during the period in question is comprehensively revealed, thoroughly examined and explained with meticulous detail. Needless to say, The Empire Within is nothing short of a historical goldmine as far as concrete information is concerned.
Nevertheless, Mills' extensive exploration of the subject also serves as one of the book's unfortunate, glaring flaws. Without degrading the importance of the book's content, it would appear that a great deal of the information put forth by Mills is considerably excessive and flirts with irrelevance when considering the author's central argument. At a glance, it seems that the majority of chapters (such as Chapter 5, dealing with women in Quebec) would be better-suited to be presented as individual works, separate from each other and the book as a whole, as they appear to fall short of satisfying the author's overall claims regarding the influence of the Third World.
Furthermore, Mills' abundance of evidence seems to draw away from the weight of his argument. Looking toward the initial points that he has outlined, it is certainly implied (though of course not directly) that the influence of situations taking place outside of Montreal are perhaps ignored or forgotten by historians, or at least by anyone engaging themselves with said history. Regarding the evidence, one has to wonder how such blatant confirmations of impact could be
present if that which they are supporting is in any way disputed. For instance, Mills emphasizes the influence bequeathed onto Montreal revolutionaries by those in France, Cuba and the United States, namely African American members of the Black Power movement. Keeping this in mind, he goes on to mention the respective visits of Charles De Gaulle, Fidel Castro and C.R.L. James in Montreal, whose purposes directly impacted and fueled the revolutionary mentality of Montrealers. Indeed, what must be brought into light is the fact that these influences are direct and obvious, rendering Mills' claim a mere recognition of events, as opposed to a revolutionary (for lack of a better term) observation.
On the whole, Sean Mills' The Empire Within: Postcolonial Thought and Political Activism in Sixties Montreal fails to convince the reader that anything new has been brought to the table regarding the topic at hand, and offers little by way of any ground-breaking insight into the history of the era. In other words, the text is essentially a massive (in both the literal and figurative sense) work of research; a thorough historical document that ought to (and surely, will be) used as a reference for works to come. It does not, however, seem to contain an innovative thesis or argument of any kind, though is clearly attempts to do so. It would appear that Mills' three purposes that he has outlined are far too similar in nature, and would have been better off as a one terse statement, primarily highlighting the language of decolonization and the influence of external revolutions on Montreal's own situation, for which Part 1 of his book would have been sufficient.
However, despite putting forth a rather flaccid central argument, Mills certainly does draw upon extremely significant historical data, which is made especially relevant when considering the enormous student strike that took place in Montreal in recent years, which has
regularly been linked to other global revolutionary initiatives such as the Occupy movement and the Arab Spring, a notion that would undoubtedly benefit from Mills' interpretation.
