Land Power And Economics On The Frontier Of Upper Canada

Land, Power, and Economics on the Frontier of Upper Canada examines Ontario's formative years, focusing on Essex County in Ontario from 1788 to 1850. Upper Canadian attitudes to land and society are shown to have been built on contemporary visions of the cosmos. John Clarke examines the actions of individuals from the perspective of the political culture and its manifestations, doing so within the constraints of geography and the cultural baggage of the settlers. Placing human action in the context of economics and laissez-faire capitalism, Clarke shows how almost unbridled acquisitiveness, and its concomitant land speculation, could promote or hinder development.

Clarke covers a remarkable number of topics, including geographic factors in the choice of agricultural land, land acquisition and clearance, energy expended in clearing and planting the land, and selection of specific crops and their extent and yields in particular combinations of soils. He also investigates the geographic parameters for wheat production - which drove the local economy - and the cultural origins of farmers as it relates to their use of intensive and extensive agriculture. Brimming with detail and expert analysis, The Ordinary People of Essex is an illuminating study of settler life and the conditions that make it possible to found a community. It complements the author's award-winning Land, Power, and Economics.

A critique of the greatest reallocation of resources in the history of the world and an analysis of its effects on indigenous peoples, the growth of property rights, and the evolution of ideas that make up the foundation of the modern world.

From 1763 to 1867 the land system of Upper Canada was one of the most important questions in the development of the new country. This detailed study of the subject examines Great Britain's plans for Canada after the conquest, the problems created by the royal "promise" of land to the loyalists, Lord Durham's Report, and the failure of the land policies to reach their economic and political objectives. In addition it covers the land problems in Canada after responsible government was achieved: Clergy Reserves, untenanted and abandoned land, settlement duties, speculation, wild land tax and assessment, and the activities of squatters. Based on Colonial Office depsatches, legislative records, the Crown Land Papers, newspapers and various private collections of documents, this work offers an accurate account of the social, economic and political aspects related to land policy in nineteenth-century Upper Canada.

Between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries the Americas, Australia, and New Zealand emerged as nations. Through conquest and violent appropriation, European immigrants settled these lands and soon developed a sense of belonging, most potently expressed in identity, memory, and the belief in utopias. Many of these new collectivities or founding nations succeeded in breaking their colonial links to achieve political and cultural emancipation from their European mother country. The Making of the Nations and Cultures of the New World explores the question of how a culture - a collective imaginary - is born. Gérard Bouchard compares the historical itineraries of New World collectivities, which were driven by a dream of freedom and sovereignty, and finds major differences as well as striking commonalities in their formation and evolution. He also considers the myths and discursive strategies devised by the elites to unite and mobilize very diversified populations. The first English translation of Genèse des nations et cultures du Nouveau Monde, winner of a Governor General's Literary Award.in 2000, this acclaimed book provides important insights for contemporary nations in crisis.

Agricultural societies founded in the colony of Upper Canada were the institutional embodiment of the ideology of improvement, modelled on contemporary societies in Britain and the United States. In Improving Upper Canada, Ross Fair explores how the agricultural improvers who established and led these organizations were important agents of state formation. The book investigates the initial failed attempts to create a single agricultural society for Upper Canada. It examines the 1830 legislation that publicly funded the creation of agricultural societies across the colony to be semi-public agents of agricultural improvement, and analyses societies established in the Niagara, Home, and Midland Districts to understand how each attempted to introduce specific improvements to local farming practices. The book reveals how Upper Canada’s agricultural improvers formed a provincial association in the 1840s to ensure that the colonial government assumed a greater leadership role in agricultural improvement, resulting in the Bureau of Agriculture, forerunner of federal and provincial departments of agriculture in the post-Confederation era. In analysing an early example of state formation, Improving Upper Canada provides a comprehensive history of the foundations of Ontario’s agricultural societies today, which continue to promote agricultural improvement across the province.