Volumes I and II of Gustave Lanctot's definitive study of New France cover the period 1600-1713. Volume III begins with the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, a year which marked the cession of a large part of the colony's periphery to her English neighbors to the south. Lanctot studies the effects of this and other contingent changes on both the social and the political life of New France, and devotes special attention to the ways in which the colonists compensated for the losses incurred by the peace of Utrecht. His point of conclusion is 1763, the year the English took power.