In recognition of Canada's sesquicentennial, this two-volume set brings together previously published scholarship on Confederation into one collection. The editors sought to reproduce not only the "classic" studies about the people, ideas, and events associated with the passage of the British North America Act, 1867, but also scholarly works that capture the complexities of the Confederation project. This ambitious anthology challenges the notion that there exists one dominant narrative underpinning 1867, and includes research that focuses on Indigenous peoples. Seven articles written in French are translated for the first time for publication in this collection. In the first volume of this anthology, Roads to Confederation introduces readers to the competing approaches to the study of Confederation and provides material that considers the nature of the 1867 project from the perspective of peoples and communities who have been traditionally excluded from the literature. It also includes the definitive scholarship on the ideational underpinnings of the making of Canada as well as several leading articles that set out different ways to understand the nature and purpose of the 1867 agreement.

Globalizing Confederation brings together original research from 17 scholars to provide an international perspective on Canada's Confederation in 1867. In seeking to ascertain how others understood, constructed or considered the changes taking place in British North America, Globalizing Confederation unpacks a range of viewpoints, including those from foreign governments, British colonies, and Indigenous peoples. Exploring perspectives from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, France, Latin America, New Zealand, and the Vatican, among others, as well as considering the impact of Confederation on the rights of Indigenous peoples during this period, the contributors to this collection present how Canada's Confederation captured the imaginations of people around the world in the 1860s. Globalizing Confederation reveals how some viewed the 1867 changes to Canada as part of a reorganization of the British Empire, while others contextualized it in the literature on colonization more broadly, while still others framed the event as part of a re-alignment or power shift among the Spanish, French and British empires. While many people showed interest in the Confederation debates, others, such as South Africa and the West Indies, expressed little interest in the establishment of Canada until it had profound effects on their corners of the global political landscape.