Recent, unpredictable incidents in diverse locations - Paris, Nice, Ankara, Sinai, California, Manchester and London - reinforce how governments and scholars must look beneath the surface for understanding of the turbulent post-9/11world. In particular, what does 'expertise' mean in this new era? This book answers that question? The volume is about a particular kind of expert - a type suffering from 'bad press' for a long time - namely, scholars who carry out area-based research. The term 'expert' itself even comes in for some humor about how it might be defined - someone who knows more and more, about less and less, until eventually they know everything about nothing. Behind the old joke is a grain of truth: Expert standing becomes unimpressive to us, in both intellectual and practical terms, when it is seen as parochial and lacking in vision. This volume will explore Area Studies (AS), a prominent type of expertise, along a range of dimensions. As we move towards the third decade in the new millennium, attention shifts to the somewhat unexpectedly positive future of New Area Studies (NAS) as a resurgent intellectual movement. NAS has departed from what the editors have dubbed Traditional Area Studies (TAS) - commonplace till the millennium. Both the editors of this volume, and its contributors, are leading scholars in area-based work across continents. Together they have participated and observed as area-oriented research struggled to overcome protracted and intense criticism since the Cold War. Thus, the volume marks the resurgence of area-based research in its new guise as NAS - the crux - understanding increasing complexity around a shrinking globe. Taken together, the contents of this volume make the the case for a New Area Studies grounded in necessary travel, using new and wider methodologies involving reflective practice and production of knowledge with local people. It argues the necessity of such broad and deep approaches in order to appreciate what is going on in the world in the 21st century and to help us see off the arrival of more and increasingly nasty unpredictable shocks.

July 1st 1867 is celebrated as Canada's Confederation - the date that Canada became a country. But 1867 was only the beginning. As the country grew from a small dominion to a vast federation encompassing ten provinces, three territories, and hundreds of First Nations, its leaders repeatedly debated Canada's purpose, and the benefits and drawbacks of the choice to be Canadian. Reconsidering Confederation brings together Canada's leading historians to explore how the provinces, territories, and Treaty areas became the political frameworks we know today. In partnership with The Confederation Debates, an ongoing crowdsourced, non-partisan, and non-profit initiative to digitize all of Canada's founding colonial and federal records, this book breaks new ground by integrating the treaties between Indigenous peoples and the Crown into our understanding of Confederation. Rigorously researched and eminently readable, this book traces the unique paths that each province and territory took on their journey to Confederation. It shows the roots of regional and cultural grievances, as vital and controversial in early debates as they are today. Reconsidering Confederation tells the sometimes rocky, complex, and ongoing story of how Canada has become Canada.

Plusieurs croient que le 1er juillet 1867 represente la date de la Confederation canadienne, le jour de la creation du nouveau pays. Mais le processus ne faisait que s'amorcer en 1867. Du petit dominion aux frontiAres restreintes, le pays est devenu une federation beaucoup plus grande, avec dix provinces, trois territoires, et des centaines de communautes autochtones. Les politiciens ont longtemps debattu le concept de pays; ils ont bien pese les avantages et les inconvenients d'une adhesion A la Confederation canadienne. La Confederation, 1864-1999 regroupe plusieurs historiens influents du Canada qui etudient comment les provinces, les territoires, ainsi que les regions sujettes aux Traites ont pris leurs formes actuelles. En partenariat avec Les Debats de la Confederation, un projet de production participative non-partisan et sans but lucratif visant A numeriser les documents fondateurs du Canada, ce livre innove; il integre les traites entre les peuples autochtones et la Couronne pour mettre en lumiere la creation et l'expansion de la Confederation canadienne. Ce faisant, le livre revele l'histoire tumultueuse, complexe et evolutive de chaque province et territoire.