Awards

• Winner of Prix Lionel-Groulx 1986 (Canada)

Overview

This interdisciplinary study offers a comprehensive analysis of the French, Dutch and English colonization of northeastern North America during the early and middle decades of the 17th century. It is the first to pay serious attention to the European economic and political factors which promoted colonization, arguing that its prime determinant was the uneven development of agricultural systems in western Europe. ""Bitter Feast"" examines the impact of colonization upon the native peoples and the nature of the colonial societies which were established in northeastern North America. Denys Delage contends that the outcome of colonial rivalries in North America depended on the characteristics of the European national economies which were competing with each other for a share of the world market, maintaining that the Netherlands constituted the core of the European world system prior to the 1660s, with England and France both part of the semi-periphery. Originally published in French, this award-winning book presents a provocative world-system analysis of European colonization of northeastern North America during the early and middle decades of the 17th century.

Full Product Details

9780774804516

Table of Contents

Reviews

A well-written, tightly argued comparative colonial history which never departs from its central theme. So reflective and provocative an interpretation deserves wide circulation.--Cornelius J. Jaenen Histoire sociale, Social History

Bitter Feast is a welcome and important contribution to 17th-century studies. All serious students of Canadian history should regard it as essential. -- J.R. Miller Canadian Book Review Annual Delage's arguments are diverse, elegantly constructed, and based on a wide range of respectable interpretative concepts ... The originality of his work lies in the diversity of material that he synthesizes and the structure that he gives to his subject matter. -- Bruce G. Trigger Culture It is engrossing, enlightening and even lively reading. It is easy to see why the book was a prize winner when it first appeared in 1985. It will be a long time before a more comprehensive and readable work on the fur trade appears. -- Virginia P. Miller Anthropologica

Delage's arguments are diverse, elegantly constructed, and based on a wide range of respectable interpretative concepts ... The originality of his work lies in the diversity of material that he synthesizes and the structure that he gives to his subject matter. -- Bruce G. Trigger * Culture * Bitter Feast is a welcome and important contribution to 17th-century studies. All serious students of Canadian history should regard it as essential. -- J.R. Miller * Canadian Book Review Annual * It is engrossing, enlightening and even lively reading. It is easy to see why the book was a prize winner when it first appeared in 1985. It will be a long time before a more comprehensive and readable work on the fur trade appears. -- Virginia P. Miller * Anthropologica *

Author Information

Denys Delage is a professor in the departments of Sociology and History at Laval University in Quebec City. In 1986, he was awarded the Prix Lionel-Groulx for the French edition of this book. Jane Brierley (translator) is a Montreal literary translator who won the 1990 Governor General's award for her translation of Philippe-Joseph Aubert de Gaspe's Yellow-Wolf and Other Tales of the Saint Lawrence.

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