Faculty Authored Books

Surveyors of Empire: Samuel Holland, J.F.W. Des Barres and the Making of The Atlantic Neptune
Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2011
Stephen J. Hornsby; with cartography by Hope Stege

Director Stephen Hornsby’s Surveyors of Empire: Samuel Holland, J.F.W. Des Barres, and the Making of The Atlantic Neptune has just been published by McGill-Queen’s University Press. The book examines British surveying and mapping of northeastern North America in the 1760s and early 1770s, and the publication of The Atlantic Neptune, a monumental four-volume nautical atlas. Professor Matthew Edney, University of Southern Maine and Director of the History of Cartography project, comments: “Surveyors of Empire is an outstanding work of scholarship, well grounded in the archive, a project that provides a telling parable of imperial power. Accessible and understated, it should be of interest to a wide array of readers.” The book is lavishly illustrated with maps and historical images.


The History of Canada
[2nd edition]
Amenia, NY: Grey House Publishing, 2010
Scott W. See

‘See captures the essence of what it is to be a Canadian, our pride in our country and our preoccupation with self-identity. He discloses the historical reasons behind Canadian’s patriotism: social programs that leave no citizen behind; the Canadian role on the world stage as a middle power contributing to a more just and peaceful world; contributions to science, medicine, the arts.’ Marianne E. Reid, MLS, Librarian, Brandon University

‘From Early Exploration to the Quebec Experiment to the Canadian Nationalism Triumph to the Nuances of Modern Politics, this edition offers tremendous value for novices of Canadian History as well as those whose generational family lived through every stage of the country’s progression…The History of Canada is a compellingly written narrative that weaves the country’s immense geography, political stuggles, and regional, cultural and ethnic diversity into the complex reality of Canada.’


The Archaic of the Far NortheastThe Archaic of the Far Northeast
Orono, Maine: University of Maine Press, 2005
Edited by David Sanger and M.A.P. Renouf

Recently, a large amount of archaeological information has been discovered that has finally begun to provide information on the peoples, and their social patterns, that lived in the area of what are now Maine, Newfoundland, Labrador and Quebec from 6,000 BC to 1,000 BC.

The Archaic of The Far NorthEast
presents a collection of individual articles, each pertaining to a particular area within the far northeast region and shows that this region has a lengthy and rich archaeological heritage throughout the archaic period.

Dr. Stephen Hornsby, Director of the Canadian-American Center here at UMaine, assisted in securing the necessary funds for the initial symposium that led to the book, as well as assisting in publication costs through a grant from the Government of Canada’s Canadian Studies Grant Program.


New England and the Maritime ProvincesNew England and the Maritime Provinces: Connections and Comparisons
Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005
Edited by Stephen J. Hornsby and John G. Reid

This collection of original essays offers new perspectives on the relationship between New England and the Maritimes, a relationship that has been historically important for centuries and remains crucial to the neighbouring regions. While the main focus is historical, the authors come from a variety of disciplines, including anthropology, geography, folklore, and environmental studies. Comparative methods are used with a careful – though not uncritical – application of the “borderlands” approach.


British Atlantic, American FrontierBritish Atlantic, American Frontier
Lebanon, New Hampshire: University Press of New England, 2005
Stephen J. Hornsby

Reflecting the growing scholarly interest in transnational and comparative approaches to studying the past, British Atlantic, American Frontier offers a geographical perspective on the development of British America in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It covers in detail not only the American eastern seaboard, but also eastern Canada and the West Indies, as well as the trans-Atlantic links to western Europe and West Africa. At one level, the book synthesizes much of the current historical and geographical scholarship on these regions; at another level, it offers a provocative interpretation of British America, aruging that profound and long-standing differences existed between the American eastern seaboard and the Atlantic regions of eastern Canada and the West Indies. These differences ultimately led to the breakup of British American, the creation of the United States, and the reconfiguration of the British Empire.

British Atlantic, American Frontier is illustrated with more than one hundred photographs, maps, and historical illustrations.


The History of CanadaThe History of Canada
Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2001
Scott See

This beautifully written narrative history the book addresses the needs of non-Canadians by providing relevant background information about the country’s history, geography, political system and culture. The text is also comprehensive enough to appeal to a Canadian audience. It is part of Greenwood Publishing’s History of Modern Nations series. There are about 35 books in the series. In the last year, histories of Argentina, China, France, Iran, Ireland and Turkey have also been published.

The book offers an account of Canadian history from the earliest contact of the Native peoples and the Europeans to contemporary issues of regional, cultural and ethnic diversity, as well as Canada’s participation in world affairs. It also includes short biographies of notable people in Canadian history, a list of all the Prime Ministers of Canada, a timeline of important events and a bibliographic essay of recommended books and websites.


Obligation and Opportunity: Single Maritime Women in Boston, 1870-1930
Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 2000
Betsy Beattie

In the years between Confederation and the Great Depression nearly 500,000 Maritimers–mostly young–left the area to find work in central and western Canada and the United States. Why they left and how their departure affected the region’s economy have long been subjects of historical debate. However, until now a major component of that “exodus” has been ignored: the substantial number of emigrants who were single women.

Obligation and Opportunity addresses that oversight. Crafted from a weave of census data, oral interviews, diaries, letters, written recollections, and other primary and secondary materials, this book examines the lives of the tens of thousands of single Maritime women who went to work in Boston, Massachusetts between 1870 and 1930. It opens a window into the worlds of single female migrants–the rural family life they left, the urban environment they entered in Boston, and the various work cultures they found in their different occupations. Throughout the book personal anecdotes enliven the text while statistical evidence gives substance to its conclusions.

Beattie examines the experiences of these Maritime women within the changing socioeconomic conditions of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century North America. Her focus on single women casts new light on several historical issues: how rural families responded to economic change, how gendered attitudes influenced choices for young women, how first-generation emigrants eased the way for those who followed, and how, over time, changes in both family behavior and gender expectations transformed the nature of female out-migration. Thus, Obligation and Opportunity offers useful insights not only to historians of the Maritimes and Boston, but to scholars and others interested in family history, women’s studies, labor history, and migration research.


Riots in New Brunswick: Orange Nativism and Social Violence in the 1840s
Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993, second printing 1999
Scott W. See

‘Never ideological, See pursues his answers in the realm of fact, but his conclusions will be of interest far beyond New Brunswick, or indeed Canadian, borders. Any scholar interested in nativism, vigilantism, or the enabling of elites will benefit from his well-written and well-documented study.’ R. W. Winks, Yale University, in Choice

‘[See’s] research is thorough, and he has managed to present a detailed description of complicated events in a readable narrative that includes a concise account of the social and economic background of the story. See’s work is likely to remain the definitive study of the subject.’ Hereward Senior, McGill University, in the American Historical Review

Riots in New Brunswick makes an important contribution to the history of national identity and ethnic relations in Canada… [It] is both sophisticated and an ideal monograph to introduce undergraduate students to controversial issues in Canadian History.’ Maureen McCarthy, Rutgers University, in Labour/Le Travail