The Dorchester Review is a semi-annual, semi-popular journal of history and historical commentary founded in 2011 and published in Ottawa, Canada. The magazine describes itself as a non-partisan but "robustly polemical" outlet for "elements of tradition and culture inherent to Canadian experience that fail to conform to a stridently progressivist narrative."
Contents
The magazine, which styles itself as "a captivating journal of history and historical commentary," is named after Sir Guy Carleton, 1st Baron Dorchester, Governor of the Province of Quebec and British North America. The choice of "a bewigged British soldier, an... unapologetic colonial governor from the pre-democratic era" is intended to underscore the journal's belief that "history consists of more than a parade of secularmodern progressives." Its core readership consists of 50% professionals and businesspeople, 10% academics, 15-20% politicians, and 20-25% eclectic readers. In design, shape, and size the publication closely resembles the cold war-era Encounter as it appeared between 1970 and 1980, including content sections like "Men & Ideas," "Notes & Topics" and "Points of the Compass."
Editorial stance
National Post columnist Barbara Kay described the Dorchester Review as "politically incorrect and iconoclastic" writing which resists "the prevailing progressivist view that historians must choose between a right and wrong side of history," without catering to a specific ideology. Jonathan Kay has described it as "the only high-level publication in Canada that examines our history and traditions without even a passing nod to academic fashions and identity politics." Former ConservativePrime Minister Stephen Harper was observed reading the journal in Canada's House of Commons, contributing to its image as a right-wing publication. Founding editor C.P. Champion is a former senior advisor to Conservative cabinet ministerJason Kenney, and the author of The Strange Demise of British Canada: The Liberals and Canadian Nationalism, 1964-1968 and Relentless Struggle: Saving the Army Reserve 1995-2019, published by Durnovaria Press, which Champion founded in 2019. The link between the periodical and the publishing label is suggested by the name, Durnovaria, which was "the name of the Roman town of Dorchester." Champion was described in 2013 as "probably the most important Conservative historian in Canada today" by the Toronto Review of Books. The Review has been attacked by members of the alt-right for being insufficiently alarmed by large-scale immigration. Ricardo Duchesne faulted Australian contributor Gregory Melleuish as an example of how "Conservatives self-deceive themselves into believing what they dislike because they are afraid of leftist repercussions." The Literary Review of Canada cited The Dorchester Review among works that "might...prompt readers to rethink the way in which not all liberals are Liberals and not all conservatives sound like the Conservatives."
