Merchant Princes (Company of Adventurers) - Hardcover

Newman, Peter C.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 067084098X ISBN 13: 9780670840984

Publisher: Viking Adult, 1992

Synopsis

Traces the history of the Hudson's Bay Company from the second half of the nineteenth century and the reign of Donald Alexander Smith to the company's contemporary machinations

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Reviews

In the third and concluding volume of his history of the Hudson's Bay Company, Canadian journalist Newman ( Empire of the Bay ) traces the growth of the 300-year-old firm from its Arctic colonizing efforts to its 1980s status as a mercantile, transportation and urban real estate empire extending over one-twelfth of the globe. A splendid storyteller and indefatigable researcher, the author never allows the sweep of world and national events or the boardroom politics and internal struggles between London and Winnipeg to obscure the importance of individual adventurers and developers. Notable among the memorable portraits here is that of legendary Donald "Labrador" Smith (1820-1914), who not only served HBC for 75 years but was prominent in Canadian politics, economic and rail expansion and is credited with transforming his country from colony to nation. Smith would have rejoiced at HBC's Canadianization of the company completed in 1979 with its acquisition for $641 million (cash) by a radically different leader, Canadian billionaire Ken Thomson. Photos.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The final volume in Newman's three-part engrossing and epic record (1985, 1987) of how the Hudson's Bay Co. helped shape Canadian history as a royally chartered (in 1670) instrument of British empire. Here, Newman covers the 120-odd years through mid- 1991, during which HBC devolved into the Dominion's largest department-store chain. As before, the author again focuses on larger-than-life personalities who played major roles in the corporate drama. Among them are the rascally, self-serving Donald Alexander Smith, a longtime governor of HBC, as well as Kenneth (Lord) Thomson, the miserly heir to a newspaper/petroleum fortune who gained control of ``The Bay'' (as it's known up north) in 1979. Between the polar- opposite regimes of these two, Newman tracks HBC's expansion into the Arctic, the subsequent decline of the mainstay fur trade, and the boardroom battles that resulted in the shift of HBC's legal domicile from London to Winnipeg on the 300th anniversary of its founding. Along the way, he offers a wealth of anecdotal detail on The Bay's abortive involvements in filmmaking (37 features), wartime shipping (110 vessels sunk by German subs), bootlegging, and allied ventures that yielded few returns for investors. But despite its proving less than a financial success for backers over the years, HBC, Newman insists, has contributed immeasurably to the making of Canada's character--for instance, in the way the company's hinterland outposts established enduring commercial ties with the aboriginal inhabitants, stressing collective survival. By contrast, the author argues, fiercely independent individuals with little sense of community conquered America's frontier with shot and shell, slaughtering Indians for their furs or just to ``watch 'em spin.'' Newman concludes that the HBC has suffered irretrievable loss from the Faustian survival bargain that obliged it to exchange a many-splendored heritage for a mess of merchandising pottage. Absorbing and praiseworthy. The elegantly written text is profusely illustrated. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

The third century of Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) was marked by an expansion into the Arctic followed by a slow transition from a fur trading company into Canada's leading retailer. Newman details these changes and the personalities behind them in his final volume on the history of the HBC, which brings the story up to 1991 and includes a discussion of the sale of the northern stores and fur trade divisions in 1987. As with the previous volumes ( LJ 12/85, 12/87), Newman presents a solid analysis based on extensive research and, in this case, interviews with some of the principals involved, and he delivers it with his usual straightforward, readable style. Merchant Princes forms a magnificent conclusion to the three-volume saga and will be of interest to business historians as well as readers interested in the fur trade and Canada. Taken together, the whole of the three volumes is greater than the sum of the parts--they should stand as the standard account of the HBC for decades to come. The set is essential for academic libraries and strongly recommended for public libraries.
- Stephen H. Peters, Northern Michigan Univ. Lib., Marquette
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Viking Adult
• Publication date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 067084098X
• ISBN 13: 9780670840984
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 448