Recent Contributions to Economic History: Canada

The present state of economic history in Canada contrastswith that of a quarter century ago. It could be written sharplyin the 1930's that the most distinctive work in Canadian economics was being done by economic historians concerned with the study of transportation and tariffs, trade associations and agricultural organizations, money and banking. There was at the same time a close approach to a generally accepted framework of analysis and interpretation and more than a suggestion of synthesis in Canadian historical writings. This pre-eminence of economic history and this unity of theme are now things of the past. As to the first, the rate of progress in economic analysis and statistics, in sociology and political theory, has brought with it both a change in status and the prospect of extensive revisions, factual and interpretative, of our views of the past. Similarly, a former unity of approach resting on the economics of staple production has lost ground before the complexities of modern industrial change. For the economic historian these changes promise much for present and future research even if, at the moment, they bring small comfort.