The Company

The Rise and Fall of the Hudson’s Bay Empire

By: Stephen R. Bown

Narrated by: Traber Burns

A thrilling new telling of the story of modern Canada’s origins

The story of the Hudson’s Bay Company, dramatic and adventurous and complex, is the story of modern Canada’s creation. And yet it hasn’t been told in a book for over 30 years and never in such depth and vivid detail as in Stephen R. Bown’s exciting new telling.

The company started out small in 1670, trading practical manufactured goods for furs with the indigenous inhabitants of inland subarctic Canada. Controlled by a handful of English aristocrats, it expanded into a powerful political force that ruled the lives of many thousands of people - from the Lowlands south and west of Hudson Bay, to the Tundra, the Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains, and the Pacific Northwest. It transformed the culture and economy of many indigenous groups and ended up as the most important political and economic force in northern and western North America.

When the company was faced with competition from French traders in the 1780s, the result was a bloody corporate battle, the coming of Governor George Simpson - one of the greatest villains in Canadian history - and the company assuming political control and ruthless dominance. By the time its monopoly was rescinded after 200 years, the Hudson’s Bay Company had reworked the entire northern North American world.

Stephen R. Bown has a scholar’s profound knowledge and understanding of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s history but wears his learning lightly in a narrative as compelling and rich in well-drawn characters as a pause-resisting novel.

©2020 Stephen R. Bown (P)2021 Blackstone Publishing

Riveting

If you enjoy human and natural history, you might really enjoy Brown’s work here. I did very much.

An excellent survey of the HBC

An excellent survey of the odd assortment of personalities that defined the nature Hudson Bay Company and, by extension. North American history.

The narrator's delivery was a little stiff and stilted. But not so bad as to detract from the overall enjoyment of the book.

Excellence in history

First off, great narration. This book has opened my eyes to how Canada developed some of its customs, how it relates to the crown, and how North America was shaped before and during the creation of the United States by the British in what is now Canada and Washington/Oregon. Excitingly insightful.

An in-depth history of central Canada

For the most part this is a wonderfully detailed, fascinating history of a lesser known part of North America: the discovery and settlement of the vast interior of Canada. Hudson Bay is a rather inhospitable place, yet courageous and visionary men from England made it a profitable shipping depot. The fact that the Hudson Bay Company has been around for 400 years is truly astonishing. The only reason I did not give the book 5 stars is that the author periodically lapses into a kind of anti-European or even anti-American and anti-Canadian sentiment, favoring tribes over settlers. The most egregious example of this was the description of the great Lord Selkirk, who single-handedly laid the foundation of modern-day Winnipeg. For some reason, not disturbing buffalo ranges and canoe routes was, in the author’s mind, more important than the peaceful agricultural settlements that the great Lord was establishing. Still, I would highly recommend the book.

Really good. Enjoyed a new perspective on early America.

Good info, and has many stories about the natives of these areas. Amazing they used Beaver Pelts as currency. And also… A bit of treachery and bloodshed.