Canadian History

In 1755, New England troops embarked on a "great and noble scheme" to expel 18,000 French-speaking Acadians from Nova Scotia, killing thousands, separating innumerable families, and driving many into forests where they waged a desperate guerrilla resistance. The right of neutrality - to live in peace from the imperial wars waged between France and England - had been one of the founding values of Acadia. John Mack Faragher draws on original research to weave 150 years of history into a gripping narrative of both the civilization of Acadia and the British plot to destroy it.

As World War II raged into its second year, Britain sought a powerful ally to join its cause - but the American public was sharply divided on the subject. The Canadian-born MI6 officer William Stephenson, with his knowledge and influence in North America, was chosen to change their minds by any means necessary.

Are you familiar with the terms listed above? In Indigenous Writes, Chelsea Vowel, legal scholar, teacher, and intellectual, opens an important dialogue about these (and more) concepts and the wider social beliefs associated with the relationship between Indigenous peoples and Canada. In 31 essays, Chelsea explores the Indigenous experience from the time of contact to the present, through five categories - Terminology of Relationships; Culture and Identity; Myth-Busting; State Violence; and Land, Learning, Law, and Treaties.

Les 38 causes notoires racontées dans ce livre avec talent par le journaliste Daniel Proulx nous instruisent sur notre pensée et notre morale. Elles forcent la réflexion sur l’état de notre société et de notre justice, ce pilier de notre démocratie.

Passionnant voyage dans l’aventure québécoise, ce livre nous invite à traverser quatre siècles en dix escales: jours de colère ou de liesse, de défaite ou de victoire, de recul ou de progrès, dates fatidiques qui continuent aujourd’hui de définir le Québec. Chacun avec sa voix propre et à la lumière de sa spécialité, les auteurs éclairent ces tournants décisifs du long chemin parcouru par les Québécoises et les Québécois.

Long before she made her first trip to Afghanistan as an embedded reporter for The Globe and Mail, Christie Blatchford was already one of Canada’s most respected and eagerly followed journalists. Her vivid prose, her unmistakable voice, her ability to connect emotionally with her subjects and readers, her hard-won and hard-nosed skills as a reporter – these had already established her as a household name.

For 113 terrifying days in 1940, Nazi Germany’s air force, the Luftwaffe, threw everything it had at Great Britain in hopes of early victory in World War II. The task of defending southern England from airborne attack fell to pilots in the Royal Air Force, supplemented in their darkest hour by more than 100 flyers from Canada. These Canadians, some from famous families, some straight off the farm, served in forty-seven different Battle of Britain squadrons.

At the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, the British Empire withdrew from India, igniting the exhilaration and turmoil of a newly free society. In this vivid, atmospheric popular history, Alex von Tunzelmann chronicles these times through the most prominent figures.

The world is in flux. Disruptive technologies, ideas, and politicians are challenging business models, norms, and political conventions everywhere. How we, as leaders in business and politics, choose to respond matters greatly. Right Here, Right Now sets out a pragmatic, forward-looking vision for leaders in business and politics by analyzing how economic, social, and public policy trends - including globalized movements of capital, goods, and services, and labor - have affected our economies, communities, and governments.

On September 4, 1944, Antwerp, Europe’s largest port, fell to the Second British Army and it seemed the war would soon be won. But Antwerp was of little value unless the West Scheldt Estuary linking it to the North Sea was also in Allied hands. In his greatest blunder of the war, Field Marshal Montgomery turned his back on the port, leaving the First Canadian Army to fight its way up the long coastal flank. By the time the Canadians and others serving with them reached the area, it had been transformed into a fortress manned by troops ordered to fight to the death.

In Mossad, authors MichaelBar-Zohar and Nissim Mishal take us behind the closed curtain with riveting, eye-opening, boots-on-the-ground accounts of the most dangerous, most crucial missions in the agency's 60-year history.

Part memoir and part manifesto, Unreconciled is a stirring call to arms to put truth over the flawed concept of reconciliation, and to build a new, respectful relationship between the nation of Canada and Indigenous peoples.

Samuel de Champlain est le véritable père de la Nouvelle-France. Navigateur, cartographe, écrivain, ethnographe, il avait une vision : celle d’installer une colonie française sur les bords du Saint-Laurent. Il a toujours manifesté un grand respect pour les nations amérindiennes qu’il a côtoyées. Malgré tous les obstacles rencontrés sur sa route et les multiples voyages qu’il a dû effectuer entre la France et le Nouveau-Monde, il n’a jamais cédé, jamais fait de compromis.

Canadian hockey is rife with tales of the odd, the strange, the funny and, occasionally, the disturbing side of the game: in 1976, Maple Leafs coach Red Kelly installed pyramids in the players’ dressing room and under the bench in an attempt to harness “pyramid power”; the Cusimano brothers started the tradition of “octopus hurling” during the 1952 playoff games; in 1930, Toronto Maple Leafs’ general manager Conn Smythe placed a winning bet on a longshot horse to pay the cash-strapped Ottawa Senators for star player Frank “King” Clancy; and more!

Modern medical science has finally caught up to what traditional healing systems have known for centuries. Many traditional healing techniques and medicines are often assumed to be archaic, outdated, or unscientific compared to modern Western medicine. Nicole Redvers, a naturopathic physician and member of the Deninu K'ue First Nation, analyzes modern Western medical practices using evidence-informed Indigenous healing practices and traditions from around the world - from sweat lodges and fermented foods to Ayurvedic doshas and meditation.

In 1984, at the age of 24, Clarence Louie was elected Chief of the Osoyoos Indian Band in the Okanagan Valley. Nineteen elections later, Chief Louie has led his community for nearly four decades. The story of how the Osoyoos Indian Band - “The Miracle in the Desert” - transformed from a Rez that once struggled with poverty into an economically independent people is well-known. Guided by his years growing up on the Rez, Chief Louie believes that economic and business independence are key to self-sufficiency, reconciliation, and justice for First Nations people.

Judge, senator, and activist. Father, grandfather, and friend. This is Murray Sinclair’s story—and the story of a nation—in his own words, an oral history that forgoes the trappings of the traditionally written memoir to center Indigenous ways of knowledge and storytelling. As Canada moves forward into the future of Reconciliation, one of its greatest leaders guides us to ask the most important and difficult question we can ask of ourselves: Who are we?

Bill Morneau’s experience as Canada’s finance minister crystalized his vision for the country’s potential for growth and prosperity. Where To from Here looks backward with coolness and candor and forward with a fresh vision of all that Canada can—and must—become. In his own persuasive voice, Bill Morneau paints a positive picture, tracing his widely lauded entry into the political arena, the arc of his career in politics, major accomplishments and missed opportunities, his surprising exit, and a host of revealing episodes between the events.

Through the lens of six remarkable people, some well-known, others obscure, best-selling historian John Boyko recounts Canada's often-overlooked involvement in that conflict as peacemaker, combatant, and provider of weapons and sanctuary. When Brigadier General Sherwood Lett arrived in Vietnam over a decade before American troops, he and the Canadians under his command risked their lives trying to enforce an unstable peace while questioning whether they were merely handmaidens to a new war.

Champion of a people or traitorous rabble-rouser? Political visionary or religious lunatic? Louis Riel is one of the most ambiguous figures in Canadian history, a man who stood and fell for the Métis nation. Hear about the fascinating western icon in this well-paced biography. The doomed struggle of Louis Riel and his Métis people against the new Canadian government is a story rich in drama and cultural change.