A Great and Noble Scheme: The Tragic Story of the Expulsion of the French Acadians from Their American Homeland

A Great and Noble Scheme: The Tragic Story of the Expulsion of the French Acadians from Their American Homeland. By John Mack Faragher. (New York: Norton, 2005. xxx, 562 pp. Cloth, $28.95, ISBN 0-393-05135-8. Paper, $17.95, ISBN 0-393-32827-9.)

This book is a model of how to do North American history. Scholars often talk of a way North American history can be presented that will bring U.S. and Canadian history into the same framework (although Mexico is rarely mentioned in this context), but few actually do it. John Mack Faragher shows how it can be accomplished. He tells the story of the French-speaking Acadian settlers who were expelled from Nova Scotia in 1755 and scattered throughout the Atlantic world, with the largest number of refugees eventually ending up in Louisiana. The story is well known...