With the centenary of the First World War, communities across Canada arranged commemorations of the war experience to honour local servicemen who, through their triumphs and sacrifices, were presented as laying the foundation for a free and independent country. Often overlooked are the triumphs and sacrifices of those who supported those soldiers, and the war effort in general, back at home. The Frontier of Patriotism provides an in-depth look at all aspects of Alberta’s involvement in the...

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLERAn exciting story, passionately told and rich in detail, this major biography is the second volume of the bestselling, award-winning John A: The Man Who Made Us, by well-known journalist and highly respected author Richard Gwyn.John A. Macdonald, Canada's first and most important prime minister, is the man who made Confederation happen, who built this country over the next quarter century, and who shaped what it is today. From Confeder...

Most of us know bits and pieces of our history but would like to be more sure of how it all fits together. The trick is to find a history that is so absorbing you will want to read it from beginning to end. With this book, Desmond Morton, one of Canada’s most noted and highly respected historians, shows how the choices we can make at the dawn of the 21st century have been shaped by history.Morton is keenly aware of the links connecting our present, our past, and our future, and in ...

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 ...

Over 1.5 million Canadians were on relief, one in five was a public dependant, and 70,000 young men travelled like hoboes. Ordinary citizens were rioting in the streets, but their demonstrations met with indifference, and dissidents were jailed. Canada emerged from the Great Depression a different nation.The most searing decade in Canada's history began with the stock market crash of 1929 and ended with the Second World War. With formidable story-telling powers, Berton reconstructs...

Shocked by Canada's 1837 rebellions, John A. Macdonald sought to build alliances and avoid future conflicts. Thanks to financial worries and an alcohol problem, he almost quit politics in 1864. The challenge of building Confederation harnessed his skills, and in 1867 he became the country's first prime minister.As "Sir John A.," he drove the Dominion's westward expansion, rapidly incorporating the Prairies and British Columbia before a railway contract scandal unseated him in 1873....

Updated to 2007, including Canada’s war on terrorism.Is Canada really “a peaceable kingdom” with “an unmilitary people”? Nonsense, says Desmond Morton. This is a country that has been shaped, divided, and transformed by war — there is no greater influence in Canadian history, recent or remote.From the shrewd tactics of Canada’s First Nations to our troubled involvement in Somalia, from the Plains of Abraham to the deserts of Afghanistan, Morton examines our centuries-old re...

“Berton has made an invaluable contribution, rendering the grand Canadian adventure more readable than any detective story.” —The Vancouver SunThis is the final chapter in Pierre Berton’s epic retelling of the opening of the Canadian West in the years following Confederation. After the pioneers, surveyors and entrepreneurs came the settlers—a million people lured by government propaganda, ruthless boosterism and Utopian visions of a Promised Land. The West...

The oil sands. Global warming. The National Energy Program. Though these seem like modern Canadian subjects, author Mary Janigan reveals them to be a legacy of longstanding regional rivalry. Something of a "Third Solitude" since entering Confederation, the West has long been overshadowed by Canada's other great national debate: but as the conflict over natural resources and their effect on climate change heats up, 150 years of antipathy are coming to a head. Janigan takes readers back to a...

William Lyon Mackenzie King, twice former Prime Minister of Canada, was a brilliant tactician, was passionately committed to Canadian unity, and was a protector of the underdog, introducing such cornerstones of Canada’s social safety net as unemployment insurance, family allowances and old-age pensions. At the same time, he was insecure, craved flattery, became upset at minor criticism, and was prone to fantasy-especially about the Tory conspiracy against him. King loosened the Imperial co...

When Native and Métis unrest escalated into the Northwest Rebellion of 1885, white settlers in southern Alberta`s cattle country were terrified. Three major First Nations bordered their range, and war seemed certain. In anticipation, 114 men mustered to form the Rocky Mountain Rangers, a volunteer militia charged with ensuring the safety of the open range between the Rocky Mountains and the Cypress Hills. The Rangers were a motley crew, from ex-Mounties and ex-cons to retired, high-ranking...

The fifth title in our provincial histories series, Mavericks is an idiosyncratic and episodic history of what is arguably Canada's most unconventional province. From mapmakers to ranchers, Stampede Wrestling to Stockwell Day, acclaimed writer Aritha van Herk brings the drama and combative beauty of this irascible province to stunning life. van Herk's portrait of her home province embraces all its extremes, from deadly and spectacular weather to dinosaur graveyards, and from oil gushers an...