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The Promise of Canada: People and Ideas That Have Shaped Our Country
What does it mean to be a Canadian? What great ideas have changed our country? An award-winning writer casts her eye over our nation’s history, highlighting some of our most important stories.
From the acclaimed historian Charlotte Gray comes a richly rewarding book about what it means to be Canadian. Readers already know Gray as an award-winning biographer, a writer who has brilliantly captured significant individuals and dramatic moments in our history. Now, in The Promise of Canada , she weaves together masterful portraits of nine influential Canadians, creating a unique history of our country.
What do these people—from George-Étienne Cartier and Emily Carr to Tommy Douglas, Margaret Atwood, and Elijah Harper—have in common? Each, according to Charlotte Gray, has left an indelible mark on Canada. Deliberately avoiding a top-down approach to history, Gray has chosen Canadians—some well-known, others less so—whose ideas, she argues, have become part of our collective conversation about who we are as a people. She also highlights many other Canadians from all walks of life who have added to the ongoing debate, showing how our country has reinvented itself in every generation since Confederation, while at the same time holding to certain central beliefs.
Beautifully illustrated with evocative black-and-white historical images and colorful artistic visions, and written in an engaging style, The Promise of Canada is a fresh, thoughtful, and inspiring view of our historical journey. Opening doors into our past, present, and future with this masterful work, Charlotte Gray makes Canada’s history come alive and challenges us to envision the country we want to live in.
From the acclaimed historian Charlotte Gray comes a richly rewarding book about what it means to be Canadian. Readers already know Gray as an award-winning biographer, a writer who has brilliantly captured significant individuals and dramatic moments in our history. Now, in The Promise of Canada , she weaves together masterful portraits of nine influential Canadians, creating a unique history of our country.
What do these people—from George-Étienne Cartier and Emily Carr to Tommy Douglas, Margaret Atwood, and Elijah Harper—have in common? Each, according to Charlotte Gray, has left an indelible mark on Canada. Deliberately avoiding a top-down approach to history, Gray has chosen Canadians—some well-known, others less so—whose ideas, she argues, have become part of our collective conversation about who we are as a people. She also highlights many other Canadians from all walks of life who have added to the ongoing debate, showing how our country has reinvented itself in every generation since Confederation, while at the same time holding to certain central beliefs.
Beautifully illustrated with evocative black-and-white historical images and colorful artistic visions, and written in an engaging style, The Promise of Canada is a fresh, thoughtful, and inspiring view of our historical journey. Opening doors into our past, present, and future with this masterful work, Charlotte Gray makes Canada’s history come alive and challenges us to envision the country we want to live in.
400 pages, Paperback
Published May 15, 2018
4 people are currently reading
61 people want to read
About the author
Charlotte Gray
73 books148 followersCharlotte Gray is one of Canada’s best-known writers, and author of eight acclaimed books of literary non-fiction. Born in Sheffield, England, and educated at Oxford University and the London School of Economics, she began her writing career in England as a magazine editor and newspaper columnist. After coming to Canada in 1979, she worked as a political commentator, book reviewer and magazine columnist before she turned to biography and popular history.
Charlotte's most recent book is Gold Diggers, Striking It Rich in the Klondike. In 2008, Charlotte published Nellie McClung, a short biography of Canada’s leading women’s rights activist in the Penguin Series, Extraordinary Canadians. Her 2006 bestseller, Reluctant Genius: The Passionate Life and Inventive Mind of Alexander Graham Bell, won the Donald Creighton Award for Ontario History and the City of Ottawa Book Award. It was also nominated for the Nereus Writers’ Trust Non-Fiction Prize, the National Business Book Award and the Trillium Award. Her previous five books, which include Sisters in the Wilderness, The Lives of Susanna Moodie and Catharine Parr Traill, Flint & Feather, The Life and Times of E. Pauline Johnson and A Museum Called Canada, were all award-winning bestsellers.
Charlotte appears regularly on radio and television as a political and cultural commentator. In 2004 she was the advocate for Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada’s first prime minister, for the CBC series: The Greatest Canadian. She has been a judge for several of Canada’s most prestigious literary prizes, including the Giller Prize for Fiction, the Charles Taylor Prize for Non-fiction and the Shaunessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing.
Charlotte has been awarded five honorary doctorates, from Mount St. Vincent University, Nova Scotia, the University of Ottawa, Queen’s University, York University and Carleton University.
An Adjunct Research Professor in the Department of History at Carleton University, Charlotte is the 2003 Recipient of the Pierre Berton Award for distinguished achievement in popularizing Canadian history. She is former chair of the board of Canada’s National History Society, which publishes the magazine Canada’s History (formerly The Beaver.) She sits on the boards of the Ottawa International Authors Festival, the Art Canada Institute/Institut de l’Art Canadien, and the Sir Winston Churchill Society of Ottawa. Charlotte is a member of the Order of Canada and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
Charlotte lives in Ottawa with her husband George Anderson, and has three sons.
Charlotte's most recent book is Gold Diggers, Striking It Rich in the Klondike. In 2008, Charlotte published Nellie McClung, a short biography of Canada’s leading women’s rights activist in the Penguin Series, Extraordinary Canadians. Her 2006 bestseller, Reluctant Genius: The Passionate Life and Inventive Mind of Alexander Graham Bell, won the Donald Creighton Award for Ontario History and the City of Ottawa Book Award. It was also nominated for the Nereus Writers’ Trust Non-Fiction Prize, the National Business Book Award and the Trillium Award. Her previous five books, which include Sisters in the Wilderness, The Lives of Susanna Moodie and Catharine Parr Traill, Flint & Feather, The Life and Times of E. Pauline Johnson and A Museum Called Canada, were all award-winning bestsellers.
Charlotte appears regularly on radio and television as a political and cultural commentator. In 2004 she was the advocate for Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada’s first prime minister, for the CBC series: The Greatest Canadian. She has been a judge for several of Canada’s most prestigious literary prizes, including the Giller Prize for Fiction, the Charles Taylor Prize for Non-fiction and the Shaunessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing.
Charlotte has been awarded five honorary doctorates, from Mount St. Vincent University, Nova Scotia, the University of Ottawa, Queen’s University, York University and Carleton University.
An Adjunct Research Professor in the Department of History at Carleton University, Charlotte is the 2003 Recipient of the Pierre Berton Award for distinguished achievement in popularizing Canadian history. She is former chair of the board of Canada’s National History Society, which publishes the magazine Canada’s History (formerly The Beaver.) She sits on the boards of the Ottawa International Authors Festival, the Art Canada Institute/Institut de l’Art Canadien, and the Sir Winston Churchill Society of Ottawa. Charlotte is a member of the Order of Canada and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
Charlotte lives in Ottawa with her husband George Anderson, and has three sons.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
October 28, 2020
As an American who grew up in Michigan with Canadian roots on my Dad's side (with Canadian cousins still in the Toronto area), and with a husband who also has family in Canada, I've always been a little more interested in Canada and her history than perhaps most Americans. So, at the airport on the way out of Canada on a trip in 2018 I picked this book up and added it to my large pile of "to be read" books, which I'm only now starting to make a dent in. It was written to coincide with the 150th anniversary of Canada's Confederation by Charlotte Gray - "one of Canada's pre-eminent biographers and historians" (according to the cover bio).
Charlotte Gray's way into telling the story of the Promise of Canada is through biographies of people she feels most embody what it means to be Canadian, or who most helped to inspire or help build the things that bind Canadians together. I really enjoyed this book and found the author's style very readable. It's not a dry history or an academic excursion - it's a set of stories about Canada from an immigrant writer who clearly loves to tell stories. I found that I knew of (i.e., had heard of) many of the people she writes about, but loved the way she fleshed them out. Emily Carr and Bertha Wilson were two I'd not heard of before. Now, I think I'm in love with Carr's work - I can see why she's called the Canadian Georgia O'Keefe. And the story around Bertha Wilson and her role as the first woman on Canada's Supreme Court was very interesting. I didn't understand that Canada's Supreme Court didn't really function as the last word on Canadian law until 1982. It really drives home what a young country Canada is.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in Canada.
Charlotte Gray's way into telling the story of the Promise of Canada is through biographies of people she feels most embody what it means to be Canadian, or who most helped to inspire or help build the things that bind Canadians together. I really enjoyed this book and found the author's style very readable. It's not a dry history or an academic excursion - it's a set of stories about Canada from an immigrant writer who clearly loves to tell stories. I found that I knew of (i.e., had heard of) many of the people she writes about, but loved the way she fleshed them out. Emily Carr and Bertha Wilson were two I'd not heard of before. Now, I think I'm in love with Carr's work - I can see why she's called the Canadian Georgia O'Keefe. And the story around Bertha Wilson and her role as the first woman on Canada's Supreme Court was very interesting. I didn't understand that Canada's Supreme Court didn't really function as the last word on Canadian law until 1982. It really drives home what a young country Canada is.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in Canada.
August 13, 2023
A fascinating approach to exploring Canadian identity from 1867 to 2017. Charlotte Gray examines the lives of 9 Canadians who helped to shape how Canadians view themselves. I especially enjoyed the chapters about Emily Carr and her influence on Canadian art (interesting to see her described as Canada's own Van Gogh in modern British newspapers), and Sam Steele and the development of the iconic image of the RCMP. Some of the later chapters are about famous Canadians who are still speaking and writing about Canadian politics and culture including Margaret Atwood and Preston Manning and I wonder how their significance will be assessed 50 or 100 years from now. Gray writes with a great deal of insight, wit and scholarship.
August 25, 2020
Since moving from the United States to Canada in late 2018 I have been searching for a book (or blog, or guide, or something of the like) that would help me engage with my new country, its history, and its citizens in a way deeper than simply asking "Do you really drink maple syrup?"
This book was the answer. A perfect balance between explanation and narative, history and discussion, this book was a perfect introduction and provided much needed context for cultural life here in Canada. I would consider calling it required reading for any new immigrants, admirers of Canada, or particular people (my fellow Americans, perhaps?) looking for a fresh perspective of history.
This book was the answer. A perfect balance between explanation and narative, history and discussion, this book was a perfect introduction and provided much needed context for cultural life here in Canada. I would consider calling it required reading for any new immigrants, admirers of Canada, or particular people (my fellow Americans, perhaps?) looking for a fresh perspective of history.
February 2, 2019
Was hesitant at first to buy this book but I was pleasantly surprised! I loved the focus on lesser known Canadians, or Canadians who aren’t typically thought of as nation builders- it really helped make it a unique read.
The first few chapters started really strong, and i could really see the conclusion being built. Unfortunately the last two chapters -still very strong and important- I felt strayed from the overall conclusion on what the promise of Canada is. Nonetheless, Gray’s storytelling and ability to blend seemingly disparate biographies together strengthens her conclusion on what Canadian identity is. Gray’s conclusion about Canadian identity was well spelled out and a nice brake from the typical assessment of Canadian identity!
The first few chapters started really strong, and i could really see the conclusion being built. Unfortunately the last two chapters -still very strong and important- I felt strayed from the overall conclusion on what the promise of Canada is. Nonetheless, Gray’s storytelling and ability to blend seemingly disparate biographies together strengthens her conclusion on what Canadian identity is. Gray’s conclusion about Canadian identity was well spelled out and a nice brake from the typical assessment of Canadian identity!
July 27, 2024
Fun look into the history of a country I knew almost nothing about, presented in a creative way with a series of mini biographies of key players across various aspects and ears in Canadian history. Clearly written by a Canadian with Canadian readers in mind, but still mostly accessible to "outsiders" too.
January 11, 2022
I loved every chapter! George-Etienne Cartier, Sam Steele, Emily Carr, Harold Innis, Tommy Douglas, Margaret Atwood, Bertha Wilson, Elijah Harper and Preston Manning. Charlotte Gray wrote a fascinating account of each person, and how their actions made a difference for Canada.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews