In White Civility Daniel Coleman breaks the long silence in Canadian literary and cultural studies around Canadian whiteness and examines its roots as a literary project of early colonials and nation-builders. He argues that a specific form of whiteness emerged in Canada that was heavily influenced by Britishness. Examining four allegorical figures that recur in a wide range of Canadian writings between 1820 and 1950 - the Loyalist fratricide, the enterprising Scottish orphan, the muscular Christian, and the maturing colonial son - Coleman outlines a genealogy of Canadian whiteness that remains powerfully influential in Canadian thinking to this day.