A Great and Noble Scheme: The Tragic Story of the Expulsion of the French Acadians from Their American Homeland | 
pickAs a descendant of the Acadians myself, I waited far too long to learn about this pivotal event in history. When I was small, my Cajun family had always told me about how we as a French offshoot came to be in Louisiana, the expulsion from Canada, “le grand dérangement,” but it was so distant in collective memory, it was a sort of legend and was in a tl;dr format. I hadn‘t thought much about it, but I finally decided I‘d like to know the details.
Schwifty At any rate, this book is amazing in detail and analysis and presents some historiography of the event as well. So through this book, I‘ve been able to better appreciate what my elders were trying to get at when I was a kid and connect a few dots. I‘ll actually be visiting Nova Scotia in September and will get to see some of the places where Acadians had originally settled and where the British subsequently carried out their ethnic cleansing. 5mo
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