Description
Book SynopsisStaking Claims to a Continent is a highly readable examination of how Jefferson Davis, Abraham Lincoln, and Sir John A. Macdonald took part in a daring game of nation building that has impacted the global order to the present day.
Three political leaders presided over the reshaping of the North American continent during the fiery 1860s. Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln were both born in Kentucky, Davis in June 1808 and Lincoln the following February. John A. Macdonald was born in Glasgow, Scotland, in January 1815. All were Protestants; none came from a wealthy family. In an earlier era, such men would not have risen to political heights. They personified an age of social and economic transformation, thrust to the top by the very forces that tore the continent apart.
Davis tried to create a country by ripping the South out of the United States and establishing the Confederate States of America during the Civil War. Lincoln's crusade to save the
Trade Review
This is a vast, formidable work by a writer with an imposing collection of historical and political writings to his name. * Publisher's Weekly *
Smart popular history . . . [Staking Claims To A Continent] adds insight and texture to Laxer’s continuing tale of how a continent of bickering, mutually suspicious European settlers created the remarkably peaceable North America we enjoy today. * Globe and Mail *
Laxer writes with enthusiasm . . . [His] contribution to this narrative is to situate Canada more firmly within it. A worthy goal and a terrific idea for a book. * National Post *
