The Canadian Frontier 1534 1760

This acclaimed general history of ‘New France’ recounts the French era in Canada.

Louis de Buade, Comte de Frontenac (1622?1698), was a towering figure in North American history. Appointed in 1672 as governor general of New France, he was credited with intimidating the Iroquois, defying British colonial military might, and promoting France?s imperial expansion to the west. W. J. Eccles masterfully debunks these myths, created in part by Francis Parkman, and reveals Frontenac as an anachronism who sought to maintain his privileged status through corruption, favors at court, and the illicit pursuit of commerce in the West. A deft analysis and reexamination of official administrative and military sources have made Frontenac the classic study of a complex and historically misrepresented governor.

Soon after its publication in 1972, Read Canadian was acclaimed as a seminal guide to books by and about Canadians. It remains a landmark guide to the headwaters of Canadian society, its history and literature. It is an absorbing, helpful guide to the books that have been written (to the time of publication) about this country, its people, politics, history and arts. It also explores the world of Canadian fiction and poetry with distinguished literary critics who discuss the best novels and poetry the country had produced. Read Canadian remains a valuable sourcebook for people who want to learn more about Canadaand Canadian books

On one level, Peter Moogk's latest book, La Nouvelle France: The Making of French Canada—A Cultural History, is a candid exploration of the troubled historical relationship that exists between the inhabitants of French- and English- speaking Canada. At the same time, it is a long- overdue study of the colonial social institutions, values, and experiences that shaped modern French Canada. Moogk draws on a rich body of evidence—literature; statistical studies; government, legal, and private documents in France, Britain, and North America— and traces the roots of the Anglo-French cultural struggle to the seventeenth century. In so doing, he discovered a New France vastly different from the one portrayed in popular mythology. French relations with Native Peoples, for instance, were strained. The colony of New France was really no single entity, but rather a chain of loosely aligned outposts stretching from Newfoundland in the east to the Illinois Country in the west. Moogk also found that many early immigrants to New France were reluctant exiles from their homeland and that a high percentage returned to Europe. Those who stayed, the Acadians and Canadians, were politically conservative and retained Old Régime values: feudal social hierarchies remained strong; one's individualism tended to be familial, not personal; Roman Catholicism molded attitudes and was as important as language in defining Acadian and Canadian identities. It was, Moogk concludes, the pre-French Revolution Bourbon monarchy and its institutions that shaped modern French Canada, in particular the Province of Quebec, and set its people apart from the rest of the nation.

The Battle of the Plains of Abraham in 1759 and the subsequent capitulation of Quebec set the stage for an equally significant French-British engagement in the struggle for northeastern North America, the Battle of Sainte-Foy. In the spring of 1760, after having suffered a brutal winter, Quebec garrison commander James Murray's troops were vulnerable and reduced to an army of skeletal invalids due to malnutrition and scurvy. Trapped in hostile territory and lacking confidence in the fortifications of Quebec, Murray planned to confront French attackers outside the walls. Instead of waiting at Montreal for the British to attack, Montcalm's successor, François-Gaston de Lévis, returned to the plains for a rematch accompanied by every combatant available--French regulars, Canadian militia and First Peoples warriors. The ensuing Battle of Sainte-Foy was less a battle for territory than a struggle for survival between two equally desperate adversaries. If the British lost the battle, they would lose Quebec. If the French lost the battle, they would very likely lose Canada--both the French and the British had their backs to the wall. MacLeod presents this historical event in riveting detail, from the preparation and day-by-day actions during the engagement to the compelling siege of Quebec by land and ship. Backs to the Wall is an accessible and engaging account of an important episode in Canadian history.