A vast and diverse country whose very legitimacy is questioned by some of its people, under constant threat of cultural assimilation by a powerful neighbour, yet deemed by the U.N. to be one of the best places to live, Canada at times seems a paradox even to itself. Covers the First Nations to French and British invaders who established colonies; the integration of those colonies into a national federation; and the volatile political order that has emerged in the last sixty years. c2004.