Enlightened Zeal examines the fascinating history of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s involvement in scientific networks during the company’s two-hundred year chartered monopoly. Working from the company’s voluminous records, Ted Binnema demonstrates the significance of science in the company’s corporate strategies.

Initially highly secretive about all of its activities, the HBC was by 1870 an exceptionally generous patron of science. Aware of the ways that a commitment to scientific research could burnish its corporate reputation, the company participated in intricate symbiotic networks that linked the HBC as a corporation with individuals and scientific organizations in England, Scotland, and the United States. The pursuit of scientific knowledge could bring wealth and influence, along with tribute, fame, and renown, but science also brought less tangible benefits: adventure, health, happiness, male companionship, self-improvement, or a sense of meaning.

The first study of scientific research in any chartered company over the entire course of its monopoly, Enlightened Zeal expands our understanding of social networks in science, establishes the vast scope of the HBC’s contribution to public knowledge, and will inspire new research into the history of science in other chartered monopolies.

Dr. Binnema entered the historical profession after teaching high school English and social studies for several years. He has been teaching at UNBC since 2000, where he now teaches in the fields of Canadian and United States history, aboriginal history, and environmental history. He has written several books that examine various aspects of environmental history, aboriginal history, and the history of science. Common and Contested Ground (2001) examines the human and environmental history of the northwestern plains of North America from AD 200 to 1806. With Gerhard Ens of the University of Alberta, he published The Hudson's Bay Company Edmonton House Journals, Correspondence, and Reports: 1806-1821 (2012). That book consists of primary documents and a long essay offering a new interpretation of the history of the northern plains and Athabasca region between 1806 and 1821. "Enlightened Zeal": The Hudson's Bay Company and Scientific Networks, 1670 to 1870" (2013), is the first book to examine the relationship between science and a major chartered monopoly over its entire lifetime. Dr. Binnema also co-edited two collections of original articles, New Histories for Old: Changing Perspectives on Canada's Native Pasts (2007) and From Rupert's Land to Canada (2001). He has also published many scholarly articles including articles in Environmental History, The Canadian Historical Review, Journal of the Early Republic, Western Historical Quarterly, and The Journal of Canadian Studies.

Theodore Binnema's profile page

• Winner, CLIO Prize - North awarded by Canadian Historical Association

‘Binnema has produced a superbly written, thoroughly researched, and highly relevant study of the HBC’s role in the development of scientific networks in the modern era. The book is an enormous achievement.’

Journal of British Studies, vol 54:01:2015

‘This book will help change the ways specialists understand both the remarkable history of the HBC and the sustained practice of corporate-sponsored scholarship.’

The Historian vol 78:03:2016

‘I recommend this book for its excellent biographical data and its chronicling of HBC interactions with scientific networks.’

Archives of Natural History, vol 42:01:2015

‘Enlightened Zeal is a quite successful combination of corporate history and the history of science.’

Isis vol 106:02:2015

‘This text is essential reading for anyone interested in corporate contributions to the development of science in the British Atlantic world.’

Nineteenth Century Studies August 2017

‘Enlightened Zeal will be useful foundational reading for graduate seminars and independent research on the history of chartered trading companies, network exchange, and the appropriation of knowledge in the HBC and Rupert’s Land.’

American Review of Canadian Studies vol 46:01:2016