Highlighting the Quebec City promontory, where the history of North America was defined—and which has always provoked dreams and sustained hopes—this work recounts the succession of constantly renewed ideals to which the Plains of Abraham have borne witness. A truthful portrait of time and place, the book illuminates locales such as the turn of the great St. Lawrence River, where the rugged, majestic cliffs protect access one of the most beautiful views in the world.

Jacques Mathieu is a professor of history at Laval University in Quebec City, Quebec, where he lives. Eugen Kedl was an award-winning photographer and writer. He died in 2008.