Strange Empire

This is Joseph Kinsey Howard's last major work. It describes for the first time in detail, the heroic struggle of a primitive people to establish their own empire in the heart of the North American continent.


Throughout his lifetime, Joseph Kinsey Howard was absorbed by the fateful dream of these American primitives, the Métis: their fathers, the English, the French, the Scots frontiersmen; their mothers the Native Americans.


"The compass of Strange Empire is the history of the resistance put up by people of mixed French and Indian blood and by their cousins, the Plains Indians, to the advance of the Canadian settlement frontier. Mr. Howard's narrative...is outstanding, not because he has offered much that hitherto was not known about the events, but because of his sensitive delineation of the cultures of the Plainsmen."—Douglas Kemp, The Beaver


"Mr. Howard's book...is history reflective of his humanity, as it is reflective of his integrity, his scholarship, his depth, his informed respect for language. It will endure as a contribution to historiography. "—A. B. Guthrie, Saturday Review


"The author has sacrificed neither fact nor detail in bringing to life events which hitherto have escaped the attention of most historians. Recommended."—J. E. Brown, Library Journal


"A moving and brooding book."—R. L. Neuberger, New York Times


"Vivid and absorbing. This book describes one of the crucial struggles in the long war for the west. It is sound and significant history, written with ardor and skill."—Walter Havighurst, Chicago Sunday Tribune