"Philip Marchand's achievement amounts to historical literature of a very high order. In its way, it is an example, or even a forerunner, of a new genre: a compound of historical reconstruction and of its writers emphatic participation in his subject. The result is masterful and authentic. The sense of what happened and what that meant (and still means) is more than informative; it breathes through the climate of Marchand's fineness of learning and writing." -- John Lukacs, Professor of History (retired) Chestnut Hill College, Philadelphia, Author of Democracy and Populism: Fear and Hatred "North America has its forgotten histories, and most prominent among them is of the French and their close relations with the natives of the continent. Philip Marchand's Ghost Empire makes the ghosts of that history vivid, not only in terms of the haunting past, but in terms of the haunted descendants. A French North America was a world that might have been, a world fascinating for what it promised and what, by its defeat, was lost. Ghost Empire is a revelation." -- David Plante, Professor of Creative Writing, Columbia University, Author of The Family, Difficult Women, and American Ghosts
Philip Marchand is the books columnist for the largest circulation newspaper in Canada, the Toronto Star.
Marchand's storytelling does remind readers that the footprints of
La Salle and other French visitors and residents have all but
vanished from what was once the French empire in North America.
Recommended. Undergraduate and general collections.
*Choice*
Ghost Empire: How The French Almost Conquered North America is an
outstanding survey which tells of explorer LaSalle, murdered by his
own men but a key figure in claiming land for France in 1682. Had
history not gone differently, a French-speaking empire might have
extended a thousand miles beyond Quebec, Catholic in religion and
strong in Native rights issues. In presenting the story of
LaSalle's achievements and speculating on what could have been, an
exciting alternative history is created which weaves past and
present in a powerful account of conquest, culture and change. A
top pick for both college-level American history collections and
any general-interest public library strong in lively,
thought-provoking American history surveys.
*The Bookwatch*
Marchand describes the 17th-century explorations of North America
by Rene-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, combined with his own
travels tracing after the figure that, had he not been murdered by
his own men in Texas in 1678, could have given birth to a French
empire across North America. The figures encountered by La Salle in
the 17th century and the figures encountered along La Salle's path
some 300 years later by Marchand are used to explore how French
America could have looked, had it come to pass.
*Reference & Research Book News*
French North America, a country that might have been but never
materialized, inspired Marchand to take to the road and seek its
traces. With his itinerary guided by the explorations of La Salle
in the 1680s, Marchand combines various moods of writing in an
original way. His structure is a straight-up travelogue to a
dozen-plus sites of French colonial forts and settlements, starting
in Texas, where La Salle came to grief in 1687, reverting to
Montreal, and continuing through the Great Lakes and down the
Mississippi River….[M]archand fits his commiseration with amateur
historians and reenactors between layers of reflection on habitant
culture, its Catholicism and its relations with Indians. Further
deepening the philosophical mood are Marchand's ruminations on his
Catholic faith and his reconnection with his French Canadian
ancestry. If it's possible for people to internalize their history,
then here is an inveigling and thoughtful example from the book
critic of the Toronto Star.
*Booklist*
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