P.B. Waite's book on the events leading to the 1867 Confederation of British North American colonies has long been regarded as one of the best, and liveliest, on the subject. Newspapers were a transcript of life and society. More than mere observers of political events, they were participants with close connections to politicians, shaping public opinion according to their competing views. Public opinion, especially in the eastern colonies, was divided about whether Confederation was desirable, and even more so about what form it should take. Was the federation devised at Charlottetown and Quebec the best arrangement for a union? Certain it is that on July 1, 1867, the Province of Canada (today's Ontario and Quebec) and New Brunswick and Nova Scotia were united to form a new nation, soon to be joined by the Northwest, British Columbia and Prince Edward Island, creating the Dominion of Canada.

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Like all major events in Canadian history, the Quebec Conference of 1864, an important step on Canada's road to Confederation, deserves to be discussed and better understood. Efforts to revitalize historical memory must take a multidisciplinary and multicultural approach. The Quebec Conference of 1864 expresses a renewed historical interest over the last two decades in both the Quebec-Canada constitutional trajectory and the study of federalism. Contributors from a variety of disciplines argue that a more grounded understanding of the 72 Quebec Resolutions of 1864 is key to interpreting the internal architecture of the contemporary constitutional apparatus in Canada, and a new interpretation is crucial to appraise the progress made over the 150 years since the institution of federalism. The second volume in a series that began with The Constitutions That Shaped Us: A Historical Anthology of Pre-1867 Canadian Constitutions, this book reveals a society in constant transition, as well as the presence of national projects that live in tension with the Canadian federation.