Colonialism and Capitalism: Canada's Origins 1500–1890: A New History for the Twenty-First Century Volume One

by Bryan D. Palmer

In the past decade Canadian history has become a hotly contested subject. Iconic figures, notably Sir John A Macdonald, are no longer unquestioned nation-builders. The narrative of two founding peoples has been set aside in favour of recognition of Indigenous nations whose lands were taken up by the incoming settlers. An authoritative and widely-respected Truth and Reconciliation Commission, together with an honoured Chief Justice of the Supreme Court have both described long-standing government policies and practices as “cultural genocide.”

Historians have researched and published a wide range of new research documenting the many complex threads comprising the Canadian experience. As a leading historian of labour and social movements, Bryan Palmer has been a major contributor to this literature. In this first volume of a major new survey history of Canada, he offers a narrative which is based on the recent and often specialized research and writing of his historian colleagues.

One major theme in this book is the colonial practices of the authorities as they pushed aside the original peoples of this country. While the methods varied, the result was opening up Canada’s rich resources for exploitation by the incoming European settlers. The second major theme is the role of capitalism in determining how those resources were exploited, and who would reap the enormous power and wealth that accrued.

The first volume of this challenging and illuminating new survey history covers the period that concludes in the 1890s after the creation out of Britain’s northern colonies of the semi-autonomous federal Canadian state. Volume II, to be published in spring 2025, takes the narrative to the present.

Genres: History, Canada, Nonfiction

444 pages, Hardcover

Published September 17, 2024

Reviews

[Brendan Campisi · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wide-ranging, vividly written overview of the formation of Canada as a process of colonization and the creation of a capitalist social order. Palmer successfully integrates three distinct threads: an account of the colonial process and Indigenous responses, influenced by the contemporary concerns of Canadian historians (and drawing very effectively on a lot of recent work); a 'new social history'-style account of the development of the Canadian working class, continuing from Palmer's earliest work; and a *very* traditional Marxist history of the struggle of the emergent bourgeoisie against the fetters of feudalism, mercantilism and monopoly, establishing a society in its own image in the later 19th century.

[ReadingMeister · Rating 4 out of 5]

Palmer writes a must-read study of Canadian political economy and social relations from the early colonial period to the stage of national-state formation in the end of the 19th century. It is the general history book for Canada that has all agents, actors and their environment as the movers of history (from the "Great Men" to the marginalized populations including Indigenous nations) at the forefront. My only issue is one rather outdated nothing of the French-Canadian as a colonized people, the anachronistic naming of the French-Canadians as the "Québecois", and the relative little attention given to British Columbia in Canadian history relative to the development of other provinces and regions (especially compared to the North-West). Very minor orthographic errors also takes away from claims of perfection. Though these shouldn't take away the mass quality of the rest of the work.

[Daniel Macgregor · Rating 5 out of 5]

While covering the entire country over almost four-hundred years, Bryan D. Palmer does a great job of connecting the history of colonialism and capitalism in Canada. Highly recommend for anyone interested in Canadian history and wanting a different perspective on more traditional general history texts.