Canada: A People's History, Vol. 1

by Don Gillmor, Pierre Turgeon, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

How can we know where we’re going if we don’t know where we are coming from? This question applies as much to nations as it does to travellers, and it rings especially loudly in the ears of Canadians. A People’s History doesn’t tell us where we are going, but it shows us where we have come from
This richly illustrated book, the first of two volumes, tells the epic story of Canada from its earliest days to the arrival of the industrial age in the 1870s. Here is the story of the people who created this vast nation. The courageous explorers who tracked the vast wilderness; the adventurous settlers, many of them exiles from their homelands; the native peoples, crucial allies in the Europeans’ wars for possession of this land; the visionary politicians, and the shortsighted ones; but most of all the ordinary people who rose to the extraordinary challenge of building Canada. These people are all given voice here, their stories blending with accounts of the major events of the day.

This is the story of Canada for the new millennium, one that draws on solid scholarship and presents the human drama and excitement of days gone by, one that makes past times memorable.

Genres: History, Canada, Nonfiction, Reference

320 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Author and journalist Don Gillmor was born in Fort Frances, Ontario in 1959 and presently lives in Toronto, Ontario. Don possesses a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature from the University of Calgary. He has worked for publisher John Wiley & Sons, and has written for a number of magazines including Rolling Stone, GQ, Premiere, and Saturday Night.; where he was made a contributing editor in 1989.

Reviews

[Amanda]

As a historian, these kind of books make me supremely nervous - one of my favourite professors once said that you could tell the current political agenda just by looking at the most fashionable popular history texts. That said, this is better than your average coffee-table book but still centered on the idea of a national narrative that is a) cohesive, and b) overwhelmingly populist. In short, it does what it sets out to do - tell the story of the people - instead of the more common eastern-focused political readers. However, I'm not so sure this breakdown really works in terms of Canada's history, especially when so many rose to power from either literal or at least geographic obscurity. A step in the right direction, for sure, but maybe not the earth-shattering publication it was recommended.

[Karpe Diez]

As an immigrant myself, I would definitely recommend it to other immigrants to Canada. Having been educated in another part of the world, I am unfamiliar to what kind of manuals are used in Canadian schools for teaching Canadian history. I looked at reviews for other books in this topic before I chose this one but it still seemed to be the best choice - at least as a starting point in getting familiarized with Canadian culture.
Yes, I agree with a previous review that the breakdown is probably not the most fortunate. It makes it difficult to mentally organize the information acquired from the book, and it is even a bit confusing when trying to distinguish among certain eras or to establish certain first-to-happen facts.
I am also intrigued to see for the first time in a history book so frequent citations from personal letters belonging not only to public figures.
Overall, yes, I would definitely recommend it for reading!

[Jamie]

I learned more about the founding and history of Canada from these books than I ever did in school.