by David Hackett Fischer · ISBN 9782764620939
VAT included
Hamelyn quality guarantee · checked and verified, or your money back
In Champlain's Dream, American historian David Hackett Fischer paints a profoundly renewed and fascinating portrait of this figure we thought we knew, highlighting his many facets: the soldier, the spy in the service of the king, the talented artist, the genius cartographer, and the exceptional navigator. Champlain fought for the realization of an immense dream, a Grand Design for France in America. For thirty years, he traveled a territory now shared by six Canadian provinces and five American states, while waging a no less fierce battle against the enemies of New France in the court of Henry IV. Born in a country devastated by religious wars, he encouraged marriages between settlers and Indians, preached tolerance towards Protestants, and tirelessly tried to maintain peace between Indian nations, but knew when to take up arms and impose a new political balance, proving to be a formidable warrior and strategist. He was a visionary leader, especially compared to his English and Spanish contemporaries, a man who dreamed of a more human world living in peace, in an era marked by cruelty and violence. The result of colossal research, accompanied by numerous maps and illustrations, many by Champlain himself, this great biography, the first in decades, is as captivating as the life of its subject.
