This one-volume history chronicles a 150-year history of dramatic changes in fortune and attitudes in western Canada.

From the Riel Rebellions and the Winnipeg General Strike to the founding of the CCF, Social Credit, and Reform parties, Canada's West has always been a hotbed of political, social, and economic change. In the early twentieth century those calls for change emanated from the left as farmers and workers fought for social and economic justice. In the past two decades, the protests and calls for change emanated from the right as the region gained a new role for itself in Canada.

This history chronicles the rise and fall of such figures as Grant Devine, Bill Vander Zalm, Glen Clark, Roy Romanow, Stockwell Day, and Lorne Calvert -- and the emergence of Stephen Harper and the federal Conservatives. It describes how the West, the political wellspring of progressive changes over the years, has been transformed into the bastion of the right, culminating in the virtual annihilation of the NDP in Saskatchewan, the cradle of social democracy in Canada.

This is the updated fourth edition of John Conway's classic book originally published under the title The West.

JOHN F. CONWAY teaches sociology at the University of Regina. He is a frequent contributor to editorial pages of many newspapers across Canada. Since 1991, he has been an elected trustee on the Regina Public School Board, the largest school division in Saskatchewan. He is married and has four children.

John F. Conway's profile page

". . . a timely and provocative book. . . The West is a well-structured, straightforwardly written view of our national history from a western perspective."

Canadian Geographic