Foundations: Readings in Pre-Confederation Canadian History offers students a sample of some of the best and most recent readings dealing with the history of Canada before Confederation. The readings are grouped in overlapping time periods that have become more-or-less conventional for the study of the pre-Confederation period: Beginnings to 1663; France in America, 1663-1756; British North America, 1749-1821; Maturing Colonial Societies, 1821-1867; and Industrializing Canada, 1840-1867.