Champlain's Dream

David Hackett Fischer is rapidly becoming my favorite historical author. He always writes with passion, scholarly insight, and exhaustive research. This book is no exception. It is clear that Hackett cares deeply about the subject matter and the importance of this particular figure on North American history. Hackett never loses sight of the "big picture" while supplying the reader with rich and fascinating details about early 17th century life in North America and France. I knew absolutely nothing about Champlain and the settlement of New France before I reading this book, but I soon came to know and appreciate this very special and important historical figure. Highly recommended.

After reading a couple of good newspaper reviews, I bought this book for my mother for Christmas. I am french-canadian and Champlain was important in our history book. To say that she likes this book is a huge understatement; she says that a good book like this one is a rare find, she doesn't how to reciprocate, she keeps asking me how did I come accross such a fortunate discovery. She is revisiting her history with an enlightened view. She says that the maps, the lists make this book very thorough yet easy to understand and the story is captivating. The best gift I ever gave her (it is on my reading list also). Michèle

This is a biography of epic cultural and geographic sweep. It entwines itself into the histories of France, England and North America, illuminating by countless fascinating details while never losing the thread of its larger narrative. The subject is Samuel de Champlain (~1570 to 1635), soldier, explorer, colonizer, diplomat and leader of men. In recounting the facts and deeds of Champlain's life, Fischer finds a theme in Champlain's humanism, in his strong Christian piety with very little ecclesiology and in his dream of la Nouvelle France as the place where men would grow beyond the wars of religion that devastated the France of Champlain's youth. The facts alone are gripping (Champlain made dozens of voyages to North America, was an intimate of two French kings, fought corporate board battles as well as hostile Mohawks, made a fortune, gave it away, founded the city of Montreal, explored and mapped much of what is now eastern Canada and New England, etc., etc.) and Fischer's thematic thread gives it a very inspirational cast without ever flinching from Champlain's errors and weaknesses. Part of the book's charm is in its incidental illumination of other historical personages (Henri IV of France, for instance, and Cardinal Richelieu). Also delightful is the detail of its minor, surprising episodes; for instance, the account of Champlain's 1609 battle with Montagnais, Huron and Algonquin allies against Mohawk foes, clad in wooden armor and marching in close formation, or Champlain's use of siege engines against an Onandaga fortress in 1615. Fischer's prose is lucid and never distracting. The book is profusely illustrated with maps, sketches, paintings and photographs that together give the reader a very strong sense of having been a witness.

This is a critical book for anyone who is interested in getting a different view from the typical Anglo-American viewpoint of the history of North America. Fischer is a very passionate and considerate writer who approaches his history from a passion for the man who really went on to create New France. We get to see and read the view of Champlians upbringing, the things that shaped this marvelous individual. He was ahead of his time in compassion for his fellow man, all men according to Fisher, as we read his feelings for how Indians and African slaves. He shows us how Champlain would work to get along and bring along those indigenous peoples that he came across in his work in New France. Champlain is seen talking with those in forced labor as he travelled to Spanish America from 1599 to 1601. He is like the Thomas Jefferson of his time, very well versed and capable of many things, from sailing to administration and business. He was a writer, an historian, a cartographer. Champlain was beyond his day and had a lot of desire to bring peace and beauty to a new land. He grew up in a time of religious strife, his own town going back and forth between Catholic and Protestant control over a very short period of time. He saw atrocities where inhumanity was the norm and lived beyond that time to an era of relative peace. A great chapter is that of Henry IV where you get the feeling that Fischer is leading to maybe writing a whole book about that marvelous individuals life. Basically, if we in the USA read from our perspective all the time we limit our ability to see things from the eyes of others. This book does not criticize or impugn any other countries, he states facts but is passionate about his feeling for how Champlain viewed his world. In a time when we need real heroes to look to in times of difficulty, this book about Champlain's Dream is so very timely. This book will become a classic in my view and may even set a standard for biographies and histories for years to come. If you have a friend who is Canadian descent, this is a great recommendation or gift idea. Also, anyone you know who just loves history must have this in his or her library.

This year - 2008 - marks the 400th anniversary of the founding of Quebec or New France, as it was called then. There is an exhibition in Quebec commemorating the founding called Champlain's Dream, appropriately named after this book, an excellent biography of the founding father. David Hackett Fischer is an historian who, though not exactly popular, is widely read outside academia. His most famous work is Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America (America: a Cultural History), a very interesting study of the American appropriation of certain Britsh subcultures during the 17th century (Puritan, Scots-Irish, etc.) In the present work he tells the story of Samuel de Champlain and his attempts to create an enlightened New France. Champlain was a polymath: a soldier, a sailor, cartographer, ethnographer, naturalist, artist, writer, and political leader. It could be said that he was a Renaissance Man who was well on his to becoming a man of the Enlightenment. Champlain was born in the "cosmopolitan town" of Brouage on the west coast of France. He was born into a wealthy Protestant merchant family and lived at peace with Catholics, even during the religious wars. He had learned tolerance growing up in this milieu. French king Henri IV, with whom the family had ties, was also a Prostestant and favored religious tolerance. It was not until the invasion of France by Spanish Catholic extremists that both Champlain and Henri IV were forced to convert to Catholicism. Their new faith was not dogmatic but rather a Christian humanism that was receptive to new ideas and the pursuit of knowledge in order to better serve God. The second most influential event in Champlain's early life was the opportunity to accompany a Spanish fleet to New Spain. There he witnessed firsthand the cruelty with which the Spanish treated the Indian population. He was determined that New France would treat its subjects with more dignity and respect. It was in 1608 - 400 hundred years ago - that he was recruited by Henri IV - due to his considerable polymathic talents - to explore the waterways of the St. Lawrence and establish the colony of New France. He quickly established ties with the local tribes: the Montagnais, the Algonquin, and the Huron. This, however, incurred the wrath of the enemies of those tribes: the Iroquois League. There were numerous battles between the French and the Indians in which Champlain participated. Fischer's account of Champlain's arquebus (primitive shotgun) is very good. It was a muzzle-loaded hand-cannon that scared the daylights out of the Iroquois. Champlain was more interested in scaring them off than conquering them. Although Champlain was tolerant and humane for a person of his place and time, he was still a colonialist who demanded that the Indians become Christians and that they submit to the French political system. Champlain's dream of bringing Enlightenment values to the New World failed because Enlightenment never