Canada in the European Age, 1453-1919, New Edition

By R.T. Naylor

When Canada in the European Age, 1453-1919 was first published, it reversed traditional methodology by placing Canada's evolution in the context of the rise and fall of empires around the world, not just in the Americas. R.T. Naylor contends that the struggle for property (and political) rights in early nineteenth-century Newfoundland is incomprehensible without an understanding of events as distinct as the Afro-American slave trade or the Napoleonic Wars; the opening of the natural resource frontier of British Columbia makes sense only if seen as another manifestation of the same historical forces that fired the opening shots in the Opium wars in China; and the fate of Canada's native peoples may have been different in form but not in essence from that of the aboriginal inhabitants on almost every continent.

As Bruce Trigger explains in his preface, Canada in the European Age, 1453-1919 was the first history in which native peoples appeared as genuine actors in human dramas - mainly tragedies - instead of as part of the flora and fauna in the background. By stressing the interconnections between the grand events of the conquest and subjegation of the globe by European empire builders and the less dramatic events in Canada, Naylor's book led to a fundamental reinterpretation of Canadian social, economic, and political history.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0773530916
• ISBN13: 9780773530911
• Release Date: July 2006
• Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
• Length: 648 Pages
• Weight: 1.49 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.8" x 5.7" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Cynicism at Its Best (and Worst)

Naylor's work is immensely informative and even, given the dryness and density of the material covered, engaging. His book weaves seamlessly together the many strands of Canadian, Anglo-American, and world economic history; although, on matters about which the author lacks expertise, a certain dismissive glibness is to be detected. There is an underlying cynicism throughout the book, a skepticism vis-a-vis economic orthodoxy (and orthodox economists), which is expressed wittily. This cynicism is well-received from the pen of an author so erudite, yet it fails to provide context to that Anglo-American capitalist system to which Canada belonged. With brilliant sarcasm, Naylor describes this system as invariably corrupt, haphazard, cruel, and ruthless, yet he does not explain how, or even seem to recognize that, this same system engendered those countries which are still to this day more likely to know peace, order, and good government, as well as unparalleled and unprecedented prosperity, than most other jurisdictions. Reducing the past to chrematistics is appealing in its neat cynicism but also an exercise in deduction and perhaps at times delusion. This book is a quasi-Marxist economic history and suffers from the shortcomings inherent to such an enterprise. Taken on its own terms, it is a compelling read.