The Penguin history of Canada2006

Canada's history, eminent historian Robert Bothwell argues, is more than simply regional or national. In some respects, Canada makes most sense when viewed from the outside in, and in "The Penguin History of Canada" we are invited to do just that. The world has always seen Canada as a terrain for experiment and a land of opportunity. At first Canada's survival and, later, its prosperity depended on links with the world outside - the technologies that drove steamships and trains across oceans and continents; the armies that battled for North America; the furs, wheat, and gold that bought Canada a place in the world's trading system. An uneasy and difficult country, most of Canada's space is uninhabited, and much uninhabitable. It is a country with a huge North but with most of its population in the South, hugging the American border. Canada has nevertheless defied the odds: it remains, in the twenty-first century, a haven of peace and a beacon of prosperity. Erudite yet accessible and marked by narrative flair, "The Penguin History of Canada" paints an expansive portrait of a dynamic and complex country.