STEPHEN R. BOWN has written ten books on the history of exploration, science, and ideas--including books on the medical mystery of scurvy, the Treaty or Tordesillas, the lives of Captain George Vancouver and of Roald Amundsen and a doomed Russian sea voyage. His books have been published in multiple English-speaking territories, translated into nine languages and shortlisted for many awards. He has won the BC Book Prize, the Alberta Book Award, the William Mills Prize for Polar Books. His previous book, The Island of Blue Foxes, about Vitus Bering's voyage to Alaska, was shortlisted for the RBC Taylor Prize. Born in Ottawa, he now live near Banff in the Canadian Rockies.
In The Company, Stephen Bown . . . tells the story of the Hudson's Bay Company with verve and an astringent, contemporary slant. . . . Bown widens the lens to include a more-informed portrait of the peoples and a more-balanced assessment of the HBC's impact during 200 years of monopoly. . . . The Company is compelling, both as a lively narrative about a corporation that helped shape North American development and as a thoughtful exploration of the complex indigenous cultures that once dominated the continent. --Wall Street Journal