Staking 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 Union honed the industrial-military power that would one day dominate the world. Macdonald led the drive to shepherd the diverse British North American provinces into a federal state that would secure the northern half of the continent and keep Canada out of American hands.

In a high stakes game, these three national projects competed to create viable nation states. And the success or failure of the projects would have consequences — not only for the long-term future of the continent but also for the entire global order.

James Laxer, a professor of political science at York University in Toronto, has a wealth of experience analyzing American society. His best-selling book, Stalking the Elephant: My Discovery of America was described by Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the Boston Globe David Shribman as "a book by a Canadian that can change the United States." The book was by published by the New Press in New York under the title Discovering America: Travels in the Land of Guns, God and Corporate Gurus. One of Canada’s leading political thinkers, Laxer is frequently consulted for commentary of current national and global issues by the media. He lives in Toronto.

James Laxer's profile page

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