COMPANY: THE RISE AND FALL/ HUDSONS BAY EMPIRE (RH USA) (PB)

The Hudson's Bay Company started out in 1670, trading practical manufactured goods for furs with the Indigenous inhabitants of inland subarctic Canada. Controlled by a handful of English aristocrats, it expanded into a powerful political force that ruled the lives of many thousands of people. When the Company faced competition from French traders in the 1780s, the result was a bloody corporate battle. By the time its monopoly was rescinded after two hundred years, the Hudson's Bay Company had reworked the entire northern North American world.