First published in French in 1981 under the title Le declin du nationalisme au Québec, this classic has received considerable critical acclaim. Graham Fraser of the Montreal Gazette wrote,
"a suberb book: provocative, ironic, stimulating, and analytical, with a sharp eye for the social meaning of public events. Clift covered Quebec politics as a daily journalist for almost 25 years. He has succeeded in sweeping across events he covered to reduce them to their most substantial conflict."

Dominique Clift's perceptive analysis traces two antagonistic trends in recent Quebec history: the growth of nationalism, which reached its high point with the election of René Lévesque in 1967, and the development of individualism at the expense of group solidarity.