Champlain's Dream: The European Founding of North America

Blurb

Champlain’s Dream: The European Founding of North America is a biography written by American historian, David Hackett Fischer and published in 2008. It is a biography of French "soldier, spy, master mariner, explorer, cartographer, artist and "Father of New France"", Samuel de Champlain. In this book, Fischer examines more closely Champlain's personal impact on the establishment of a French colony in the New World - securing royal support despite opposition from formidable foes like Marie de Medici and Cardinal Richelieu, negotiating with "Indian nations" and imbuing the new colony with the values of humanism. He is also remembered for having survived 27 crossings of the North Atlantic in 37 years - without ever losing a ship. Despite never being the "senior official" of New France, Champlain functioned as an absolute ruler and as Fischer shows, his vision for New France helps explain both its triumphs and failures.
Fischer has substantial experience using the life and perspective of a great leader to tell a broader historical narrative; he employed a similar structure in Washington's Crossing for which he received a Pulitzer Prize in 2005.