Journal of the Canadian Historical Association. Vol. 26 No. 2, 2015

The winner of the 2014 Ferguson Prize was Mark Phillips’ On Historical Distance, a work that sets itself the task of examining what historians usually take for granted: historical distance, conventionally conceived, in Phillips’ words, as “a position of detached observation made possible by the passage of time.” Phillips reimagines historical distance as enacted in multiple dimensions of representation. The work, then, is an investigation of the unseen architecture of historical understanding. Of undeniable importance no matter one’s field of investigation, the book is also an intensely pleasurable journey of discovery, inviting reflection, engagement, and elaboration.