Union Nationale

The increasing momentum of the separatist movement in Quebec under Rene Levesque and the Parti Quebecois has focused renewed attention on the history of French-Canadian nationalism. Professor Quinn begins this work on the period following the First World War, and in his revised and expanded edition, carries it up to the rise of the Parti Quebecois and the victory of a more radical over a more conservative nationalism. The nationalism of the 1920s led to the formation and rise to power of the Union Nationale part of Maurice Duplessis in the 1930s. A study of the Union Nationale, its origins, its policies, its victories, and its defeats provides the background essential to an understanding of Quebec politics today. Two new chapters follow the history of the party from 1960 to 1973, the year in which the Union Nationale disappeared from the legislature. These chapters cover three political developments: the inauguration of the Quiet Revolution by Jean Lesage's Liberal party; the unexpected return to power of the Union Nationale in 1966, which was followed shortly by its decline and demise in 1973; and the rise of the new nationalist party, the Parti Qubcois, which replaced the Union Nationale as the main opposition to the Liberals.