Award-winning author Donald Creighton was a Red Ensign nationalist and firm supporter of the British Empire. At the time of writing this book, in 1976, he had come to believe that Canada was a lost cause. When everyone else was celebrating Canada's centennial, he was busy writing his own lament for a nation. Canada's First Century paints a large and complex canvas of historical rise and fall: a great transcontinental nation is built, but it is eventually undone as Canada turns its back on the British Empire and embraces a continental role alongside the United States. A courageous and contentious book for its day-Creighton is intensely anti-American and highly critical of Quebec nationalism-it was met with criticism, but, as Donald Wright points out, Canada's First Century initially outsold Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex and, for a time, even the Bible.

A beautifully written, in-depth introduction by Donald Wright explores Creighton's larger understanding of Canadian history, his preoccupation with Canada's role in the Empire, and his major contribution to economics and geography as a key feature of history.