Volume 2 describes the period 1885-1921 as one of economic expansion -sustained by the Great War - in which there was a great wave of social reformconnected with industrialization and urbanization. The next period, 1921-1945 -which includes the Great Depression and the Second World War - is characterizedby what Stephen Leacock called 'The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice.' The waritself brought national sovereignty to Canada and gave birth to the welfarestate. The growth and affluence that followed, along with striking changes inlifestyles and headlong developments in the arts, are described for the period1945-1972. The 1970s to the present, when all the givens of the past -Liberalism, centralism, and nationalism - were attacked from several directionsand began to unravel, are brilliantly surveyed by Bumsted, who inevitablyconcludes his study before the resolution of the most profound crisis in thehistory of the country.