Margaret Conrad`s history of Canada begins with a challenge to its readers. What is Canada? What makes up this diverse, complex & often contested nation-state? What was its founding moment? & who are its people? Drawing on her many years of experience as a scholar, writer & teacher of Canadian history, Conrad offers astute answers to these difficult questions. Beginning in Canada`s deep past with the arrival of its Aboriginal peoples, she traces its history through the conquest by Europeans, the American Revolutionary War & the industrialization of the nineteenth & twentieth centuries to its prosperous present. Despite its successes & its popularity as a destination for immigrants from across the world, Canada remains a curiously reluctant player on the international stage. This intelligent, concise & lucid book explains just why that is.