" The work of four young historians, Primary Sources in Canadian Working Class History: 1860-1930, was months in preparation. It led its compilers thousands of miles across the North American continent. Unwilling to leave a single stone unturned or a local historical society undisturbed in their quest for source materials on the Canadian working class, they braved drunken drivers, motor accidents, the rare librarian full of wrath, archival dust in near lethal doses, and the annual meeting of the Canadian Historical Association in order to bring you this scintillating book. No effort has been spared to make this bibliography first-rate. From the archives to the print shop the compilers were with this project longer than anyone cares to remember. Advance notices have been extremely warm." –Publisher

This collection of twelve essays by Gregory Kealey, will be of great interest to students and scholars of Canadian history, labour history, Marxist and socialist theory and history, and political science.

First published in 1981, H. Clare Pentland's Labour and Capital in Canada 1650-1860 is a seminal work that analyzes the shaping of the Canadian working class and the evolution of capitalism in Canada. Pentland's work focuses on the relationship between the availability and nature of labour and the development of industry. From that idea flows an absorbing account that explores patterns of labour, patterns of immigration and the growth of industry. Pentland writes of the massive influx of immigrants to Canada in the 1800s--taciturn highland Scots who eked out a meagre living on subsistence farms; shrewd lowlanders who formed the basis of an emerging business class; skilled English artisans who brought their trades and their politics to the new land; Americans who took to farming; and Irish who came in droves, fleeing the poverty and savagery of an Ireland under the heel of Britain. Labour and Capital in Canada is a classic study of the peoples who built Canada in the first two centuries of European occupation.

We are apt to think of labour unions as a feature of a relatively advanced industrial society. It comes as a surprise to many to learn how long ago in Canadian history they actually appeared. Unions already existed in the predominantly rural British North America of the early nineteenth century. There were towns and cities with construction workers, foundry workers, tailors, shoemakers, and printers; there were employers and employees – and their interests were not the same. From this beginning Dr Forsey traces the evolutions of trade unions in the early years and presents an important archival foundation for the study of Canadian labour. He presents profiles of all unions of the period – craft, industrial, local, regional, national, and international – as well as of the Knights of Labor and the local and national central organizations. He provides a complete account of unions and organizations in every province including their formation and function, time and place of operation, what they did or attempted to do (including their political activity), and their particular philosophies. This volume will be of interest and value to those concerned with labour and union history, and those with a general interest in the history of Canada.

The New Practical Guide to Canadian Political Economy is a handy reference to the vast range of research and writing that political economists in Canada have completed to the date of publication. The book is divided into twenty-five subject bibliographies, each one compiled and introduced by an expert in the field. The overall range of subjects includes economic development in Canada, Canada's external economic relations, regional disparities and regional development, social and economic classes, women, Native peoples, politics and the Canadian state, nationalism, culture and political thought. The book is indexed by author, and includes a helpful shortlist of the "staples" in Canadian political economy. Published in 1985, The New Practical Guide to Canadian Political Economy remains a useful reference to some of the classic literature of the discipline.