Abstract
The history of business in Canada was perceived by many as the history of the CPR or the Hudson’s Bay Company. Michael Bliss, a University of Toronto academic noted for his books Discovery of Insulin and Banting, has prepared a most impressive study of business in Canada from the first fishing expeditions of the Basques through the ancienne regime, the growth of national and international enterprises in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, and the booms and depressions of the twentieth century to the debates over financial failures and free trade in the 1980s. Northern Enterprise does not fail to consider the tougher questions which have faced business in Canada, including the prerogative of governments, colonial and modern, to intervene in the marketplace for the nation’s interest.