This book offers a short, comprehensive history of post-war Canada. All the major events and developments in Canadian history are discussed: the evolution of the welfare state; the growth of economic domination by the United States; the halcyon days as a Middle Power; the Quiet Revolution; the First Nations' quest for autonomy; the flowering of English-Canadian nationalism; Quebec nationalism; the women's movement; neo-conservatism; and globalization. Finkel covers political, economic, social, and cultural history in this volume.
This second edition includes a substantial new chapter that discusses the people, events, and developments that have dominated the period from 1995 to 2012. This chapter looks at the growing social inequality within Canadian society; the effects of globalization on Canada's industries, economy, and workers; and the increasing environmental challenges that we face.
Extensively illustrated, Our Lives: Canada after 1945 is a uniquely accessible and comprehensive overview of a period only beginning to attract the attention of historians.
Part One: In the Shadow of the Giant: 1945-1963
1 Brave New World
2 A Home Fit for Heroes
3 The Regions and the Provinces
4 The Politics of a "Middle Power"
Part Two: Traditions and Invented Identities: 1963-1980
5 The Search for Political Identity
6 English-Canadian Nationalism
7 From the Quiet Revolution to the First Sovereignty Referendum
8 The West and the East in the Period of Centralization
9 The Women's Movement: A "Second Wave"
10 Canada's First People Rebel
11 The Salience of Class
Part Three: The Centre Cannot Hold: Canada Since 1980
12 Neo-Conservative Times
13 Canada and the World in the Era of "Globalization"
14 Quebec Nationalism and Globalism
15 Other Voices in a Neo-Conservative Age
16 Canada in the Twenty-First Century
Notes
Photo Credits
Index
"...a wonderful, rollicking read."
- Dean F. Oliver Canadian Book Review Annual
"Finkel...offers a detailed social panorama of the shaping of post-Second World War Canada. This is a useful and, more important, concerned illustrated survey."
- Globe and Mail
"History prof Finkel examines the watershed events and trends that have influenced Canada's history in the past 50 years - among them the evolution of the welfare state, U.S. domination, Quebec's Quiet Revolution and the women's movement."
- Britt Hagarty Vancouver Sun
"Our Lives will greatly interest general readers as well as the academic community. Finkel's excellent work should certainly be considered by teachers as a text on post-war Canada."
- John MacFarlane Canadian Social Studies
"Finkel's wide-ranging and coherent history begins before World War II... Finkel's account of Quebec's Quiet Revolution and the complicated skein of personalities and events that created the Quebec/Canada imbroglio, including the impact of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, is both detailed and concise."
- Rae Murphy Literary Review of Canada
"This book is the first to look at the people, forces and events that have shaped post-war Canada. All the major themes of our history are covered, such as the evolution of the welfare state, our domination by the United States, our days of importance as a Middle Power, the quiet Revolution, the growth of First Nations' Power, the flowering of English-Canadian Nationalism, the women's movement, Quebec Nationalism, and globalization. An excellent read."
- R.J. Love Fredericton Daily Gleaner
"In a series of lucid chapters he divides the story into three parts that add up to a meaningful narrative on the making of contemporary Canada... it [provokes readers into a reconsideration of the key events that have shaped the country."
- David Frank Saint John Telegraph-Journal
ALVIN FINKEL is a professor of history at Athabasca University. He is also the author of Business and Social Reform in the Thirties, The Social Credit Phenomenon in Alberta, and A History of Canadian Peoples.
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