The Rise of Canadian Business (review)

Graham Taylor's The Rise of Canadian Business examines the evolution of business in Canada from the National Policy period to the present. Most of the book's material originally appeared as Taylor's contribution to A Concise History of Canadian Business, (1994) co-authored with Peter Baskerville. Taylor has revised the old material to reflect more recent scholarship and has written four new chapters: Chapter 1, which provides a broad overview of the period before the completion of the cpr in 1885, and the three chapters in Part III, covering the period from 1980 to the present. This sleek survey text is a valuable resource for those interested in post-Confederation business history.

The book combines chronological and thematic organization and highlights three interconnected themes: the evolving patterns of business organization, the distinctive features of Canadian business, and its international setting. The last theme is deployed in a particularly effective manner throughout the text to place Canada within the framework of the broader capitalist world and to compare Canada's experience to those of other advanced capitalist nations. The well-written and measured prose outlines the major debates among scholars and important conceptual frameworks that have influenced scholars in Canada and elsewhere — especially the United States. Weighty endnotes offer guidance for further reading. Moreover, the book does not simply rehash the ideas and work of others; in many ways it offers a unique synthesis that yields useful insight on a variety of topics, including the development of regional economies as well as the complex interplay between state policies, business interests, and investment decisions.

The book is divided into three parts based upon the following periodization: "The Age of Business Consolidation" (1885 to 1930); "The Age of the Activist State" (1930 to 1988); and "The New Era of Globalization" (1980 to the present). The text is particularly strong on the period before the Second World War, providing a rich analysis of topics such as the structure of the business community, organizational transformation in business and at the workplace during the Second Industrial Revolution, the changing nature of foreign investment in the Canadian economy, the emergence of retail giants such as Eaton's, and the persistence of small business and its political expression during "the age of business consolidation." Throughout the text Taylor grounds the development of Canadian business within the broader political context that shaped the national and international scene.

The analysis of the post-Second World War period tends to focus more narrowly on the institutional histories of firms and state development policies. Taylor does an admirable job of integrating political life into this narrative; state support, after all, was often decisive in determining business developments during "the age of the activist state." In describing the next phase in Canada's business development, "the new era of globalization," Taylor points to the newfound emphasis on global competition and the "resurgence of the idea of entrepreneurship in North America;" in this context some large, professionally managed companies appeared to be corporate dinosaurs, while conglomerate-builders such as Conrad Black signaled a new path. (216 and 222-4) Meanwhile, deregulation cleared the path for consolidation in the financial sector; the banks — the "Big Five" — swallowed up most of the major securities dealers and trusts after the barriers among financial services were abolished in 1987. The major insurance companies also expanded in the new environment. Forbes ranked Sun and Manulife among the top 10 insurance firms worldwide in 2005. And while Taylor cannot be described as an adherent to the "staples thesis," he devotes considerable and appropriate attention to the development of resource exports throughout.

However, Taylor provides a somewhat less balanced picture of the Canadian economy by failing to highlight the rise of the service sector in more recent years, at least outside the area of financial services. One might have expected more on the development of advertising techniques, fast-food restaurants and donut shops, the proliferation of suburban malls and later big-box stores, and other trends that have shaped Canadian business since the end...