Canada: The First 20,000 Years

The history of Canada can seem like a subject as large and expansive as the country itself, and for those of us who haven't attended a history class in a while, it may just feel too big to tackle.

Academic histories full of footnotes and jargon aren't for everyone, but everyone deserves to know the history of the country they call home. Direct but never dry, historian James M. Roth starts at the country's geographical beginnings at the end of the last Ice Age and weaves Canada's tale from there.

From contrasting early New World civilization against established Old World tradition; contextualizing Indigenous history within the rest of Canadian history; explaining today's complex relationships between English and French Canadians with a play by play analysis of events; giving meaning to countless social and political movements by looking at the bigger picture; and covering everything else in between in commuter-length chapters, Canada: The First 20,000 Years is a history book for the everyday Canadian.

James M. Roth had a double honours major in political science and history from Queen's University. He had a lifelong voracious appetite for reading about Canadian and world history, and he was an avid watcher of the news.

In 2019, Roth's passion for Canadian history led him to pen Canada: The First 20,000 Years in a single summer. It is his first and only book, edited and published posthumously following a battle with cancer that ended a couple of months shy of his 51st birthday. He lived in Toronto, Canada and is survived by his wife and son.