THE LAST HISTORY OF CONFEDERATION was R. G. Trotter's Canadian Federation, published in 1924. Since that time, much work has been done on this seminal period of Canadian history by Canadian historians, and more recently, in important peripheral studies, by American ones. Three notable contributions by Canadians have been D. G. Creighton's British North America at Confederation for the Rowell-Sirois Report, his John A. Macdonald: The Young Politician (1952), and W. M. Whitelaw's The Maritimes and Canada before Confederation (1934). This present book begins roughly where Professor Whitelaw's ended. It is a study of ideas and politics in the province of Canada, 1864-1867. This book is, in several important respects, a shift in emphasis and direction, and represents an entire rewriting on the basis of other perspectives and a good deal of further research.

P.B. Waite is professor emeritus, Dalhousie University, and the author of The Life and Times of Confederation, 1864-1867 and The Man from Halifax: Sir John Thompson, Prime Minister. He is an officer of the Order of Canada.

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"This is certainly the most pleasant way to learn history. The people and events of past times have a liveliness and immediacy equal to those of the present day. It is, of course, history without the balanced view which time alone can give, but it's history which you'll read as easily as a gossip column -- and remember." Fredericton Daily Gleaner

"[Cet ouvrage] me semble le meilleur et le plus complet qu'on ait jamaica consacré à ce sujet qui est évidemment un des plus importants de notre historire." Jean-Charles Bonenfant, Canadian Historical Review
"An astonishingly lively, informative and even funny book -- a book which will give you a very different picture of the hard-drinking, hard-bargaining Fathers of Confederation than the one you got in school or from the famous Notman photograph." Canadian Reader

"It is an absorbing account, and tells us much that we need to know about this nation." John Saywell, on "Critically Speaking"