The French Jesuit Pierre-François-Xavier de Charlevoix’s 1744 journal of his voyage through French North America—New France, Louisiana, and the Caribbean—is among the richest eighteenth-century accounts of the continent’s colonization, as well as its indigenous inhabitants, flora, and fauna. Micah True’s new translation of this influential text is the first to appear since 1763. It provides the first complete and reliable English version of Charlevoix’s journal and reveals the famous Jesuit to have been a better literary stylist than has often been assumed on the basis of earlier translations. Complemented by a detailed introduction and richly annotated, this volume finally makes accessible to an Anglophone audience one of the key texts of eighteenth-century French America.

The French Jesuit Pierre-François-Xavier de Charlevoix’s 1744 journal of his voyage through French North America—New France, Louisiana, and the Caribbean—is among the richest eighteenth-century accounts of the continent’s colonization, as well as its indigenous inhabitants, flora, and fauna. Micah True’s new translation of this influential text is the first to appear since 1763. It provides the first complete and reliable English version of Charlevoix’s journal and reveals the famous Jesuit to have been a better literary stylist than has often been assumed on the basis of earlier translations. Complemented by a detailed introduction and richly annotated, this volume finally makes accessible to an Anglophone audience one of the key texts of eighteenth-century French America.

In 1682 the French explorer René-Robert Cavelier de La Salle claimed the Mississippi River basin for France, naming the region Louisiana to honor his king, Louis XIV. Until the United States acquired the territory in the Louisiana Purchase more than a century later, there had never been a revolution, per se, in Louisiana. However, as Jennifer Tsien highlights in this groundbreaking work, revolutionary sentiment clearly surfaced in the literature and discourse both in the Louisiana colony and in France with dramatic and far-reaching consequences. In Rumors of Revolution, Tsien analyzes documented observations made in Paris and in New Orleans about the exercise of royal power over French subjects and colonial Louisiana stories that laid bare the arbitrary powers and abuses that the government could exert on its people against their will. Ultimately, Tsien establishes an implicit connection between histories of settler colonialism in the Americas and the fate of absolutism in Europe that has been largely overlooked in scholarship to date.

The languages indigenous to North America are characterized by a remarkable genetic and typological diversity. Based on the premise that linguistic examples play a key role in the origin and transmission of ideas within linguistics and across disciplines, this book examines the history of approaches to these languages through the lens of some of their most prominent properties. These properties include consonant inventories and the near absence of labials in Iroquoian languages, gender in Algonquian languages, verbs for washing in the Iroquoian language Cherokee and terms for snow and related phenomena in Eskimo-Aleut languages. By tracing the interpretations of the four examples by European and American scholars, the author illustrates their role in both lay and professional contexts as a window onto unfamiliar languages and cultures, thus allowing a more holistic view of the history of language study in North America.

Most Canadians assume they live under some form of democracy. Yet confusion about the meaning of the word and the limits of the people’s power obscures a deeper understanding. Constant Struggle looks for the democratic impulse in Canada’s past to deconstruct how the country became a democracy, if in fact it ever did. This volume asks what limits and contradictions have framed the nation’s democratization process, examining how democracy has been understood by those who have advocated for or resisted it and exploring key historical realities that have shaped it. Scholars from a range of disciplines tackle this elusive concept, suggesting that instead of looking for a simple narrative, we must be alert to the slower, untidier, and incomplete processes of democratization in Canada. Constant Struggle offers a renewed, sometimes unsettling depiction, stretching from studies of early Indigenous societies, through colonial North America and Confederation, into the twentieth century. Contributors reassess democracy in light of settler colonialism and white supremacy, investigate connections between capitalism and democracy, consider alternative conceptions of democracy from Canada’s past, and highlight the various ways in which the democratic ideal has been mobilized to advance particular visions of Canadian society. Demonstrating that Canada’s democratization process has not always been one that empowered the people, Constant Struggle questions traditional views of the relationship between democracy and liberalism in Canada and around the world.

Through its missionary, pedagogical, and scientific accomplishments, the Society of Jesus-known as the Jesuits-became one of the first institutions with a truly "global" reach, in practice and intention. The Oxford Handbook of the Jesuits offers a critical assessment of the Order, helping to chart new directions for research at a time when there is renewed interest in Jesuit studies. In particular, the Handbook examines their resilient dynamism and innovative spirit, grounded in Catholic theology and Christian spirituality, but also profoundly rooted in society and cultural institutions. It also explores Jesuit contributions to education, the arts, politics, and theology, among others. The volume is organized in seven major sections, totaling forty articles, on the Order's foundation and administration, the theological underpinnings of its activities, the Jesuit involvement with secular culture, missiology, the Order's contributions to the arts and sciences, the suppression the Order endured in the 18th century, and finally, the restoration. The volume also looks at the way the Jesuit Order is changing, including becoming more non-European and ethnically diverse, with its members increasingly interested in engaging society in addition to traditional pastoral duties.

This volume addresses a wide range of topics related to Aboriginal resource use, ranging from the pre-contact period to the present. The papers were originally presented at a conference held in 1988 at the University of Winnipeg. Co-editor Kerry Abel has written an introduction that outlines the main themes of the book. She points out that it is difficult to know what the enshrinement of Aboriginal rights in the Canadian Constitution means without knowing exactly what constituted the Aboriginal interest in the land past and present. She also summarizes some of the developments in the rapidly evolving concept of Aboriginal rights.