Staking Claims to a Continent is a highly readable examination of
how Jefferson Davis, Abraham Lincoln, and Sir John A. Macdonald took
part in a daring game of nation building that has impacted the global
order to the present day.
Three political leaders presided over the reshaping of the North
American continent during the fiery 1860s. Jefferson Davis and Abraham
Lincoln were both born in Kentucky, Davis in June 1808 and Lincoln the
following February. John A. Macdonald was born in Glasgow, Scotland, in
January 1815. All were Protestants; none came from a wealthy family. In
an earlier era, such men would not have risen to political heights. They
personified an age of social and economic transformation, thrust to the
top by the very forces that tore the continent apart.
Davis tried to create a country by ripping the South out of the United
States and establishing the Confederate States of America during the
Civil War. Lincoln's crusade to save the Union honed the
industrial-military power that would one day dominate the world.
Macdonald led the drive to shepherd the diverse British North American
provinces into a federal state that would secure the northern half of
the continent and keep Canada out of American hands.
In a high stakes game, these three national projects competed to create
viable nation states. And the success or failure of the projects would
have consequences -- not only for the long-term future of the continent
but also for the entire global order.
