Rise to Greatness: The History of Canada From the Vikings to the Present

by Conrad Black

Overview

Masterful, ambitious, and groundbreaking, this is a major new history of our country by one of our most respected thinkers and historians -- a book every Canadian should own.
     From the acclaimed biographer and historian Conrad Black comes the definitive history of Canada -- a revealing, groundbreaking account of the people and events that shaped a nation.
     Spanning 874 to 2014, and beginning from Canada's first inhabitants and the early explorers, this masterful history challenges our perception of our history and Canada's role in the world. From Champlain to Carleton, Baldwin and Lafontaine, to MacDonald, Laurier, and King, Canada's role in peace and war, to Quebec's quest for autonomy, Black takes on sweeping themes and vividly recounts the story of Canada's development from colony to dominion to country. Black persuasively reveals that while many would argue that Canada was perhaps never predestined for greatness, the opposite is in fact true: the emergence of a magnificent country, against all odds, was a remarkable achievement. Brilliantly conceived, this major new reexamination of our country's history is a riveting tour de force by one of the best writers writing today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780771013553
Publisher:	McClelland & Stewart
Publication date:	11/11/2014
Sold by:	Random House
Format:	eBook
Pages:	1040
Sales rank:	559,018
File size:	10 MB

About the Author

CONRAD BLACK is the author of widely acclaimed biographies of Maurice Duplessis, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Richard Nixon. He was for many years the head of the Argus, Hollinger, and Telegraph Newspaper groups. Black is a financier, and a columnist in the National Post, which he founded, and the National Review Online and Huffington Post. Black served three years in US federal prisons tutoring fellow prisoners for their secondary school matriculations, although all charges against him were eventually abandoned, rejected by jurors, or vacated by the US Supreme Court, and he won the largest libel settlement in Canadian history from his original accusers. He has been a member of the British House of Lords since 2001. He lives in Toronto. The author lives in Toronto.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements ix

Foreword Paul Johnson xi

Introduction 1

Prelude: "The Land God Gave to Cain": Original Inhabitants and Early Explorers, 874-1603 7

Part I Colony: 1603-1867

Chapter 1 Champlain, the French Monarchy, New France, and the Maritime Colonies, 1603-1754 23

Chapter 2 Carleton, American Wars, and the Birth of Canada and the United States, The British Defeat the French, the Americans and French Defeat the British, and the British and Canadians Draw with the Americans, 1754-1830 111

Chapter 3 Baldwin, LaFontaine, and the Difficult Quest for Autonomy from Britain White Retaining British Protection from the United States, 1830-1867 213

Part II Dominion: 1867-1949

Chapter 4 Macdonald and the World's First Transcontinental, Bicultural, Parliamentary Confederation. The Pacific Railway, the National Policy, and the Kiel Rebellion, 1867-1896 319

Chapter 5 Laurier, the Dawn of "Canada's Century," and the Great War, 1896-1919 397

Chapter 6 King and the Art of Cunning Caution Between the Wars, 1919-1940 501

Chapter 7 King and the Art of Cunning Caution in War and Cold War, 1940-1949. From "Premier Dominion of the Crown," to Indispensable Anglo-American Ally 599

Part III Realm: 1949-2014

Chapter 8 St. Laurent and Duplessis, Canada as a Middle Power, and Quebec in Pursuit of Autonomy, 1949-1966 727

Chapter 9 Trudeau, Levesque, and the Quebec Crisis, 1966-2000 837

Chapter 10 A Force in the World at Last, 2000-2014 959

Conclusion: Reflections and Prospects 1007

Photographic Credits 1021

Notes 1022

Bibliography 1043

Index 1068