Empire of the Bay: The Company of Adventurers That Seized a Continent

Rating:
Summary: Incredible!
Review:
Hudson's Bay Company is quite simply the most successful commercial enterprise ever known to capitalism. Imagine a company that controlled one twelfth of the earth's surface, whose domain was 10 times larger than the Holy Roman Empire, a company whose beginnings date from 1682, that developed its own Army, its own Navy and whose stock is still reputed to be owned by Britain's Royal Family.

In the forward, the author claims this book is about the impact of Hudson's Bay Company on the development Canada over the past three centuries. But it is really not. The author is being too modest. It is really about the impact of Hudson's Bay Company on the development of North America and how HBC actually was responsible for the formation of Canada and the United States as we know them today.

Everything you read in this book is the result of the primary economic force of its time, fur. The fur business was the primary employer for the inhabitants of eighteenth century North America. As such, it was the primary driver for the continuing exploration of the North American continent.

This then is not just a book about corporate wealth accumulation but of territorial exploration and definition, of competing, overlapping claims at a time in which their simply was no law. HBC was the fur business in Canada and in a very real sense it was HBC that defined the northern territorial limits of the United States.

Read and enjoy this excellently written and well documented book. It is really a treasure. You will learn the amazing history of Canada and an incredible amount about the United States as well.


Rating:
Summary: Great American History
Review: First reading transcript of PBS showing of this piece of our heritage,over the years of living and traveling in the pacific northwest and visiting different historical sites here in Oregon it was a great learning experience and the imaginnative of our minds take off of what really went on back then.

Rating:
Summary: History at its best
Review: If history is meant to elevate and entertain, then this book qualifies. Not only is the author's style engaging, but his commentary is itself illuminating. There's so much written these days about "colonial oppression" and the "politics of Empire", but it's refreshing to read a work that is conscientious of these issues without making them a guiding factor.

Rating:
Summary: Well-written, fact-packed but lively
Review: Newman escapes the traditional trap of history authors, making this book packed with facts and a lively, entertaining read at the same time. Anyone interested in HBC or Canada should read this book, as well as anyone interested in exploration, commercial development or Indian-European relationships. Many of the stories and anecdotes contained here are funny, sad or out-and-out tragic, and anyone familiar with today's corporate world will be amazed at how little things have really changed.

Rating:
Summary: Phenomenal
Review: Should be mandatory reading for all highschool and undergraduate history courses. There is absolutely no better account of the founding of North America by Europeans than this. I can't believe that I was unable to find availability of this book in Canada.

Rating:
Summary: Phenomenal
Review: This book actually goes far beyond the Hudson Bay Company to tell the history of Western Canada. The real greatness of this book the way the author takes a topic and makes it come alive. For example, when it comes time to discuss pemmicam, the food used by the voyageurs, you get a mini-history of buffalo and how each part of the body is used. These lengthy digressions take away some of the chronological flow of the book, but they are well worth it. If you like to know what it was really like to live in a different place at a different time, this is the book for you.

Rating:
Summary: Prince Rupert's Men
Review: This is a splendid account of the three hundred and fifty year institution that is Hudson's Bay Company, and even incorporates a number of chapters that chronicle its great rival, the North West Company. Newman traces the origins of the Hudson's Bay Company back to those great explorers Raddison and Groseilliers, Frenchmen sponsored by the English, and then traces it through the many eras of economic and geographic expansion. This was a company that dealt primarily in furs, and as such, Newman begins by paying homage to the Canadian beaver. (If you want to learn a lot of fascinating things about beavers, this is the book for you). The great explorers of Canada's arctic and Western frontiers, Kelsey, Hearne and Fraser, are suitably honored, and the company's great arch-enemy, John Jacob Astor, is suitably reviled. Newman doesn't shy away from pointing out that the HBC was a rather cheap enterprise that kept its best people chronicly underpaid, and occasionally lapses into fond remembrance of the comparatively hedonistic - but less successful - Northwest Company. Ultimately, however, he pays tribute to the long-term impact of the HBC on Canadian culture and values; thrift, modesty, a preference for the collective over the needs of the individual. A masterpiece of narrative history.

Rating:
Summary: A lifeless read...
Review: Trudging through this book was a task, and not something I rather enjoyed. I believe if you are going to read something, you should enjoy it. And this... did nothing for me. If you want to know about Canada, or better yet, the Hudson Bay Company; the Canadian Government offers great links and information that was far more enticing then this novel.