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Control and Order in French Colonial Louisbourg, 1713-1758 is the culmination of nearly a quarter century of research and writing on 18th-century Louisbourg by A. J. B. Johnston. The author uses a multitude of primary archival sources-official correspondence, court records, parish registries, military records, and hundreds of maps and plans-to put together a detailed analysis of a distinctive colonial society. Located on Cape Breton Island (then known as Île Royale), the seaport and stronghold of Louisbourg emerged as one of the most populous and important settlements in all of New France. Its economy was based on fishing and trade, and the society that developed there had little or nothing to do with the fur trade, or the seigneurial regime that characterized the Canadian interior. Johnston traces the evolution of a broad range of controlling measures that were introduced and adapted to achieve an ordered civil and military society at Louisbourg. Town planning, public celebrations, diversity in the population, use of punishments, excessive alcohol consumption, the criminal justice system, and sexual abuse are some of the windows that reveal attempts to control and regulate society. A. J. B. Johnston's Control and Order in French Colonial Louisbourg offers both a broad overview of the colony's evolution across its half-century of existence, and insightful analyses of the ways in which control was integrated into the mechanisms of everyday life.

On 31 May - 3 June 1995, more than 200 participants gathered in Sydney and at Fortress Louisbourg, Nova Scotia, for the 21st annual conference of the French Colonial Historical Society. Essays in French Colonial History contains seventeen of the best articles presented at this meeting. It is a wide-ranging collection that explores many new and innovative facets of the French experience outre mer. The contributors, a mix of established experts and younger scholars, examine French activity in North America, the West Indies, Africa, and South America and focus on issues military, social, cultural, native, and political history. 
     Among the subject areas explored are: the 16th century French colonies in Brazil and Florida; Victor Hugues and the Reign of Terror on Guadeloupe; commerce and the distinctiveness of Louisbourg; the importance of letter-writing and compagnonnage; unresolved territory of the Creek Nation; case studies in the area of transition patrimonial; French colonial interests and policies in Atlantic Canada, Africa, and South America; attitudes among African Americans in post-French St. Louis; and a research report on the Historical Atlas of Quebec.