In this volume, Professor Clark shows that for two hundred years Canadian society was subject to the same kind of disturbing and disruptive forces that revealed themselves in the United States in the Revolutionary period. In Canada, as in the United States, there was a frontier element which, economically, socially, and culturally, did not feel itself part of the established political order, and which periodically reacted against that order. In Canada, however, the spirit of the frontier regularly met defeat, and the author analyses the causes of this defeat in a thorough and illuminating manner, dealing in sequence with each area of conflict. The study is divided into four parts: The First American War of Independence, 1660-1760; The War of the United Colonies, 1765-1785; The Struggle for the West, 1785-1815; The Canadian Rebellions, 1815-1840.

The author, an economist and sociologist, diverges sharply from the traditional historical interpretation of events in Canada from 1640 to 1840, which has been to emphasize the differences between the two countries rather than similarities. His realistic and penetrating study may prompt many to re-examine and re-assess the bases of their interpretations.