Company of Adventurers, Volume 1

Dean Tudor is a journalism professor at the Ryerson Polytechnical
Institute and founding editor of the CBRA.

There is a definite feeling about this book — a feeling that Peter Newman certainly put a lot of work and time and effort into it. His effort does show in certain places. But alas, in style and conception, Newman is not as good a popularizer of history as is Pierre Berton. A certain stiffness pervades his writing. Still, Newman must be given a chance, for this is his first actual account of history. Volume One covers the Hudson’s Bay Company from 1670 through 1800; Volume Two will advance through the modern era, and presumably by this time Newman will have a greater sense of history in his writing. The black-and-white illustrations in Volume One are poorly reproduced.

On the positive side, there is a long list of sources (written materials and archives) as well as the names and positions of about 180 resource people. And HBC did Newman a favour by “granting me unimpeded access to archives and files” (p.v). Scattered throughout the book, and especially at the end in a series of appendices, there are important business documents dealing with the financial transactions of the Company.