For contents, see Author Catalog.

By 1756 the wilderness war for control of North America that erupted two years earlier between France and England had expanded into a global struggle among all of Europe's Great Powers. Its land and sea battles raged across the North American continent, engulfed Europe and India, and stretched from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, Indian, and Pacific waters. The new conflict, now commonly known as the Seven Years' War of 1756-1763, was a direct continuation of the last French and Indian War. This study explores the North American campaigns in relation to events elsewhere in the world, from the ministries of Whitehall and Versailles to the land and sea battles in Europe, Africa, South Asia, and the Caribbean. Few wars have had a more decisive effect on international relations and national development. The French and Indian War resulted in France's expulsion from almost all of the Western Hemisphere, except for some tiny islands in the Caribbean and St. Lawrence. Britain emerged as the world's dominant sea power and would remain so for two centuries. Finally, within a generation or two the vast debts incurred by Whitehall and Versailles in waging this war would help to stimulate revolutions in America and France that would forever change world history.

In 1600 there were no such people as the Acadians; by 1700 the Acadians, who numbered almost 2,000, lived in an area now covered by northern Maine, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and the southern Gaspé region of Quebec. While most of their ancestors had come to live there from France, a number had arrived from Scotland and England. Their relations with the original inhabitants of the region, the Micmac and Malecite peoples, were generally peaceful. In 1713 the Treaty of Utrecht recognized the Acadian community and gave their territory -- on the frontier between New England and New France -- to Great Britain. During the next forty years the Acadians continued to prosper and to develop their political life and distinctive culture. The deportation of 1755, however, exiled the majority of Acadians to other British colonies in North America. Some went on from their original destination to England, France, or Santo Domingo; many of those who arrived in France continued on to Louisiana; some Acadians eventually returned to Nova Scotia, but not to the lands they once held. The deportation, however, did not destroy the Acadian community. In spite of a horrific death toll, nine years of proscription, and the forfeiture of property and political rights, the Acadians continued to be part of Nova Scotia. The communal existence they were able to sustain, Griffiths shows, formed the basis for the recovery of Acadian society when, in 1764, they were again permitted to own land in the colony. Instead of destroying the Acadian community, the deportation proved to be a source of power for the formation of Acadian identity in the nineteenth century. By placing Acadian history in the context of North American and European realities, Griffiths removes it from the realms of folklore and partisan political interpretation. She brings into play the current historiographical concerns about the development of the trans-Atlantic world of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, considerably sharpening our focus on this period of North American history.

Revisiting ten notable days from recent history, Aaron W. Hughes invites readers to think about the tensions, events, and personalities that make Canada distinct. These indelible dates interweave to offer an account of the political, social, cultural, and demographic forces that have shaped the modern nation. The diverse episodes include the enactment of the War Measures Act, hockey’s Summit Series, the patriation of the Constitution, the Multiculturalism Act, the École Polytechnique Massacre, victories for gay rights, Quebec’s second referendum on secession, The Tragically Hip’s farewell concert, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and ongoing Black equality struggles. Each day represents a window on contemporary Canada, jumpstarting reflection and conversation about who we are as a nation and how we got here. Ten Days That Shaped Modern Canada is the perfect guide for all those curious about the forces that shape our country and about how we understand our place in the world.

A history of the military campaigns near Fort Ticonderoga, New York, in 1758.

Henry Ellis (1721-1806) is recognized as the most capable of Georgia's three colonial governors. In this biography Edward J. Cashin presents the fullest account to date of Ellis's life, and shows that his tenure as governor of Georgia was but one of many accomplishments by a man of exemplary intelligence, courage, and vision. Cashin puts Ellis's life and career in the context of the great cultural migrations, encounters, and conflicts of British imperial and American colonial history. As he traces Ellis's rise from one who implemented British foreign policy to one who played a crucial hand in formulating it, Cashin reveals the inner workings of the imperial bureaucracy and shows how colonial politics were inextricably linked to the intrigues of the royal court and the vagaries of the nobility's patronage system. The book's early chapters recall Ellis's youth and formative years as a transplanted Briton in Ireland, and then tell of his seafaring exploits as he searched Canada's arctic waters for the Northwest Passage and engaged in the slave trade between Africa, the Caribbean, and the American colonies--all the while enhancing his reputation as an explorer, scientist, and man of letters. As Georgia's governor (1757-1760) Ellis came to be known as the colony's "Second Founder" (after James Oglethorpe) by recasting it into one of the more economically sound, less politically factionalized North American colonies. In his account of Ellis's governorship Cashin shows how he had to function as a local administrator and a representative of the crown, managing, for instance, the French and Indian War as it was fought both in his colony and in the halls and chambers of Parliament. The middle chapters cover Ellis's return to England in 1761. There he accepted, but eventually relinquished, an appointment as governor of Nova Scotia. Choosing instead to remain in England, Ellis drew on his knowledge of French and Spanish colonial activity, the slave trade, and Indian affairs to advise Pitt, Egremont, Halifax, and others of the king's ministry. A polished statesman, Ellis weathered the machinations surrounding George III's ascension to the throne, and influenced the course of the war with France and the terms of its peace settlement in 1763. Ellis also had a hand in the political appointments, boundary settlements, and trade decisions attendant to the epochal Proclamation of 1763, which set the course of history for Quebec, Nova Scotia, the Floridas, and the British West Indies. After his invaluable help in reorganizing Britain's expanded American empire, Ellis withdrew from public service in 1768. Cashin portrays Ellis in genteel retirement, during which he increased his absentee landholdings in Ireland and traveled in Italy, France, Belgium, and elsewhere on the Continent. In his last years, Ellis was a much-sought-after guest, and moved within a circle of friends that included Horatio Nelson, the king of Sweden, and the Abbe Raynal. More than an artful biography, this is the story of a crucial period in American and British history, as told through the experiences of one of the period's most influential, behind-the-scenes power brokers.

A compelling account of one of the most ambitious and catastrophic French naval expeditions in the eighteenth century.