This indispensable new guide to Canadian history is comprehensive, authoritative, and -above all- companionable. It the essential guide to the significant events, issues, institutions, people, and places that have shaped Canadian life from earliest times to the late twentieth century. In more than 1,600 entries, the country's leading historians describe and analyse events in political, military, social, economic, cultural, and intellectual history, drawing on the latest scholarship. Topics such as gambling, potlatches, abortion, hockey, capital punishment, jackatars, andshipwrecks find a place alongside more traditional entries like prime ministers and suffragists, exploration and fur trade, railways and responsible government. Politicians, soldiers, scientists and industrialists, feminists, social activists and religious leaders, all make an appearance. Vikingsand Basque whalers, Jesuits and filles du roi, the Huron Feast of the Dead, privateers, charivaris, the Acadian grand derangement, the Metis buffalo hunt, rebellions, the On-to-Ottawa trek, bunkhouse men and bush pilots, the battle at Vimy Ridge, gold rushes, Spanish influenza, Frontier College,corvettes, trade unions, midwives, Automatistes, the Mad Trapper, La Bolduc, free trade and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, all contribute to the fascinating story which is Canada's history. Entries are arranged from A-Z and fully cross-referenced, with a complete index to guide readers to related topics. This new companion, from a publisher with an unrivalled reputation for authoritative reference works, provides learned, accessible, and up-to-date studies of the key subjects andpersonalities in Canadian history. Lively and informative, no Canadian should be without it.

Gerald Hallowell was born in Port Hope, Ontario, and grew up on a nearby farm. A graduate of the University of Toronto and Carleton University, he worked for over twenty years as an editor at the University of Toronto Press, retiring as senior editor, Canadian history, in 2000. In 1996 he was elected for a three-year term to the council of the Canadian Historical Association. He edited The Oxford Companion to Canadian History, published in 2004. His previous book, The August Gales: The Tragic Loss of Fishing Schooners in the North Atlantic, 1926 and 1927, won the Democracy 250 Atlantic Book Award for Historical Writing in 2014. Since 1989 he has lived in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia.

Gerald Hallowell's profile page

"This massive lay guide to Canadian history contains entries on such wide-ranging topics as the Huron Feast of the Dead, Basque whaling stations, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and Spanish influenza. Look for pithy but thorough summaries of all the major periods in Canadian history,beginning before the 16th century." --Quill and Quire

"...a handsome and impressive production....The coverage is vast, the prose sprightly, and the interest of both the browser and the specialist are served." --Globe and Mail

"Not surprisingly, Oxford has produced a comprehensive and comprehensible resource that is destined to become an indispensable reference. It covers every conceivable topic and personality from Canadian history, from all regions and eras, from the specific to the general.Surprisingly, it's a great read--fun just to browse and see what Canada's top historians have on offer." --Annalee Greenberg, Editor, The Beaver

"A superbly edited, comprehensive, invaluable guide to all of Canada's history. The Oxford Companion to Canadian History belongs on every Canadian bookshelf." --Jack Granatstein

"The Oxford Companion to Canadian History puts the lie to William Lyon Mackenzie King's quip that Canada has more geography than history." -- Times Literary Supplement

"The work is a browser's delight, with that quality of intriguing interest that tempts a reader into extended excursions....Taken all in all, [the]Oxford Companion to Canadian History is a major publishing event and a triumph of its kind. It provides an accessible and impressively weightyvolume that should be mandatory for every library in the country. Its range is enormous. Applaud and enjoy." Books in Canada

"Oxford reference works have an authority and comprehensiveness that is near proverbial. The Oxford Companion to Canadian History has the authority and comprehensiveness we expect from this press, but it is also a kind of combined encyclopaedia, thesaurus of catch-phrases, mini Who's Who, anda masterful sketchbook of people, events, pastimes and issues that have framed our nation. Aside from moving in with Pierre Berton, the Oxford Companion offers the surest, most diverting guide to the great themes and compelling minutiae of Canadian history." --Rex Murphy