"Seen but Not Seen is a meticulously-researched and beautifully written documentary of the great contradiction of our national life."
Holly Doan, Blacklock’s Reporter
"The book is excellent, balanced and illuminating. While it is factually very rich, as well as researched and referenced, it is very readable and accessible."
Chris Stoate, Oakville News
"To see Indigenous peoples, we must also see ourselves. With this well-written, engrossing, and often sobering book, Smith helps us do some of that work, with all the responsibilities it implies."
Elaine Coburn, Literary Review of Canada
"If more educators and politicians had historically approached this subject area with the same deference and respect, there may not have ever been a need for a century of periodic national commissions of inquiry into the sad state of relations between Canadians and First peoples."
Maurice Switzer, Anishinabek News
"Seen But Not Seen is an eminent historian's portrait gallery: faces of the long century in which Canada was constituted, treaties made, the West settled, residential schools established, and Indigenous peoples shunted to the margins of public awareness."
Roger Epp, University of Alberta, Alberta Views
"The culmination of Smith's illustrious career writing on Canadian history, Seen but Not Seen vivifies that history with lively biographies of the politicians who made Canadian Indian policies, First Nations activists, scholars, and supporters of Indian rights."
A. B. Kehoe, Marquette University, CHOICE
"There is something here for everyone: specialists will find accounts of some ‘influencers’ who are little-known today, while readers new to the field will find a balanced telling of some important stories. At a time when emotions are running high and dubious claims are being made about Canadian history, Donald Smith is a voice of informed reason. Seen but Not Seen deserves to be widely read and deeply savoured."
Kerry Abel, Carleton University, Prairie History
"Donald B. Smith, emeritus professor of history at the University of Calgary, provides fascinating biographical portraits of sixteen non-Indigenous individuals from different professions and examines how each influenced Canadian perceptions of Indigenous peoples. Well known as the author of previous biographies of Mississauga Chief Peter Jones and the mysterious Buffalo Child Long Lance, Smith draws on knowledge gained in a half-century of archival research and field work to provide readers of Seen but Not Seen with the reasons for Ottawa’s many failures in regard to Indigenous peoples. Although geared for Canadian scholars, historians of Native Americans in the United States will find Smith’s excellent work quite illuminating, as much has parallels south of the international boundary line."
Laurence M. Hauptman, State University of New York, American Indian Culture & Research Journal
"While most studies in the field evaluate Indigenous policy through laws and the communities impacted by them, Smith focuses on the lawmakers and activists themselves. Shifting the focus from the nation state, governmental departments, and police bureaus to individuals may inspire new conversations around settler accountability for historic wrongdoings."
Emma Scott and Brittany Luby, Canadian Historical Review
"Seen but Not Seen represents an outstanding culmination of a lifetime of work of one of the first Canadian historians to enter the field of Indigenous history."
Kevin Brushett, Ontario History
"Seen but Not Seen: Influential Canadians and the First Nations from the 1840s to Today offers readers unparalleled expertise on Canadian indigeneity across two centuries."
Jan Noel, University of Toronto, Ethnohistory
"With Seen but Not Seen, Smith has taken a voluminous amount of research and distilled it into a readable, balanced account that’s packed with fascinating detail. His evident passion for the topic shines through."
Canada’s History
“The quality of scholarship is very high. Donald B. Smith is meticulous, building on decades of extensive and careful research and thoroughly documenting his writings and conclusions.”
Jennifer S.H. Brown, University of Winnipeg
“Offering revelation after revelation, each indicting the rich, privileged, and elite society of Canada, shackled in their own times, Donald B. Smith skillfully and poignantly reveals stories illuminating the truth. No celebrations here, and nowhere to hide as one ponders and copes with what could have been. Miigwech (thank you), Donald, for elevating us to our stage in time where we can own the imperative that yes, we can!”
Dean M. Jacobs, Walpole Island First Nation
“Donald B. Smith’s Seen but Not Seen could not possibly be more timely – and more welcome. This is the lifework of one of the country’s greatest historians. Canadians will see themselves in this book; they will not like much of what they see, but they will finish with a sense that reconciliation with First Nations is possible – so long as we first face the truths. These truths are here, in a remarkable work that covers everything from a re-evaluated John A. Macdonald to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is peopled with remarkable characters, many admirable, some despicable – Duncan Campbell Scott, John McDougall, Crowfoot, Long Lance, Kathleen Coburn, Emily Carr, Pauline Johnson, Harold Cardinal – and is wonderfully illustrated with archival photographs and maps.”
Roy MacGregor, columnist and feature writer for The Globe and Mail
“Impeccably researched, much like everything Donald B. Smith has written over his impressive career. This work is a gift from an historian on the cusp of retirement, who shares his archive to help us understand the history of Canada and outlines the gaps left for future, especially Indigenous, researchers to tackle.”
Deanna Reder, Simon Fraser University
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