Rise to Greatness, Volume 1: Colony (1000-1867): 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.
     The first of three volumes, spanning from the year 1000 to 1867, and beginning with Canada's first inhabitants and the early explorers, this masterful history challenges our perception of our history and Canada's role in the world, taking on sweeping themes and vividly recounting 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:	9780771013560
Publisher:	McClelland & Stewart
Publication date:	03/07/2017
Series:	Rise to Greatness , #1
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.20(d)

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 The 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

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 While Retaining British Protection from the United States, 1830-1867 213

Photographic Credits 324

Notes 325

Bibliography 330

Index 357

Editorial Reviews

• "Rise to Greatness traces the political and economic history of Canada over the last four centuries. . . . Black contemplates his home and native land with unabashed pride." —Montreal Gazette

 • ". . . [B]owls the reader along like an adventure story. . . . This book never bores. . . . [T]he élan of a writer at the top of his game, covering his subject with a staggering degree or erudition. . . . The narrative positively sparkles with ironic witticisms and aperçus that make this book as much a work of literature as of history." – Andrew Roberts, National Post

From the Publisher