**NATIONAL BESTSELLERNamed Best Book of the Year by the Globe and Mail, History Today and The Hill TimesA gripping and eye-opening account of the building of the engineering triumph that created a nation: the Canadian Pacific Railway**The sharp decline of the demand for fur in the late nineteenth century could have spelled economic disaster for the venerable Hudson’s Bay Company, but an idea emerged in political and business circles in Ott...

The late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries witnessed the dawn of a golden age of science, during which time there was a dedicated drive to accurately categorise nature and explain the natural world. Enthusiastic naturalists, amateur and professional, set off to collect and classify plants and animals across the New World, and many of these finds still bear the names of those who discovered them today.In this new and updated edition, The Noble Quest...

NATIONAL BESTSELLERA thrilling new telling of the story of modern Canada's origins.The story of the Hudson's Bay Company, dramatic and adventurous and complex, is the story of modern Canada's creation. And yet it hasn't been told in a book for over thirty years, and never in such depth and vivid detail as in Stephen R. Bown's exciting new telling.The Company started out small in 1670, trading practical manufactured goods for furs wi...

**NATIONAL BESTSELLERNamed Best Book of the Year by the Globe and Mail, History Today and The Hill TimesA gripping and eye-opening account of the building of the engineering triumph that created a nation: the Canadian Pacific Railway**The sharp decline of the demand for fur in the late nineteenth century could have spelled economic disaster for the venerable Hudson’s Bay Company, but an idea emerged in political and business circles in Ott...

A thrilling new telling of the story of modern Canada’s originsThe story of the Hudson’s Bay Company, dramatic and adventurous and complex, is the story of modern Canada’s creation. And yet it hasn’t been told in a book for over thirty years and never in such depth and vivid detail as in Stephen R. Bown’s exciting new telling.The company started out small in 1670, trading practical manufactured goods for furs with the indigenous inhabitants of inland subarc...

**INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLEROne of Canada’s foremost authors and journalists, offers a gripping account of the contest between John Diefenbaker and Lester Pearson, two prime ministers who fought each other relentlessly, but who between them created today’s Canada.**John Diefenbaker has been unfairly treated by history. Although he wrestled with personal demons, his governments launched major reforms in public health care, law reform and immigration. On his watch, First Nat...

1816 was a remarkable year—mostly for the fact that there was no summer. As a result of a volcanic eruption at Mount Tambora in Indonesia, weather patterns were disrupted worldwide for months, allowing for excessive rain, frost, and snowfall through much of the Northeastern US and Europe in the summer of 1816.In the US, the extraordinary weather produced food shortages, religious revivals, and extensive migration from New England to the Midwest. In Europe, the cold and wet summer l...

**FINALIST FOR THE 2023 MAVIS GALLANT PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION • LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 J. W. DAFOE BOOK PRIZE • An Audible Best Audiobook of the YearA riveting account of the years, months and days leading up to the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, and the unexpected ways Canadians were involved in every aspect of the American Civil War.**Canadians take pride in being on the “good side” of the American Civil War, serving as a haven for 30,000 escaped slaves on the...

**#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLERWINNER OF THE 2024 NATIONAL OUTBOOK AWARD FOR JOURNEYSSHORTLISTED FOR THE 2024 SPEAKER'S BOOK AWARDFINALIST FOR THE BANFF MOUNTAIN BOOK COMPETITION FOR ADVENTURE TRAVELFrom Canada’s most accomplished adventurer and storyteller comes a gripping journey into the vastness of Canada’s landscape and history.**Looking out his porch window one spring morning, Adam Shoalts spotted a majestic peregrine falcon fl...

From “the great storyteller of Russian history” comes a brilliantly colored account of the myths that have shaped and reshaped Russia’s identity and politics from its foundingWho were the Rus, the ancient tribe from which the Russians trace their origins? Were they Baltic Slavs, hailing from within the territory that would become Russia? Or were they Vikings from Scandinavia, who came in from the outside to organize chaotic warring groups? Russians initially embrac...

**NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A “thrilling and superbly crafted” (The Wall Street Journal) account of the most momentous voyage of the Age of Exploration, which culminated in Captain James Cook’s death in Hawaii, and left a complex and controversial legacy still debated to this day.One of *The New York Times Book Review’*s 10 Best Books of the YearA BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: THE NEW YORK TIMES, TIME, THE ECONOMIST, NPR, THE NEW YORKER, T...

This is the untold story of Britain's role in the Israel–Palestine conflict. During the First World War, the British High Commissioner in Egypt reached a secret agreement with the Sharif of Mecca. If the Sharif allied with Britain against the Ottomans, after the war an independent Arab state that included Palestine would be established. The Sharif kept his word. The British did not. Instead, two years later Lloyd George's government declared that Palestine would be for the global Jewish co...