A Bounded Land

In this beautifully crafted and written volume, Canada’s preeminent historical geographer traces how Canada’s geographical limitations have shaped the nature of its settler societies – from first contacts, to dispossession, to our current age of reconciliation.

Cole Harris, for years a student of immigrant societies in early Canada and of their relations with Indigenous peoples, is the editor of the first volume of the Historical Atlas of Canada (1987) and the author, among other works, of Making Native Space: Colonialism, Resistance, and Reserves in British Columbia (2002) and The Reluctant Land: Society, Space, and Environment in Canada before Confederation (2008). The winner of many academic awards, he is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and an Officer of the Order of Canada. He is a professor emeritus of historical geography at the University of British Columbia.

Grace Keng, Pennsylvania State University:
It is to Harris’s credit that the innovative assembly of spatial and social vignettes in A Bounded Land prompts our reflection on Indigenous and settler relations in colonial Canada.

Benjamin Hoy:

There is a lot packed into this book ... [It] highlights the theoretical and practical policies that underwrote colonialism. In doing so, it helps to explain how the history of dispossession became inseparable from the rise of nation-states such as Canada.

Ken Favrholdt, Kamloops, BC:
Cole Harris has produced an eloquent compilation of work on settler colonialism in Canada.

Barry Gough:

A Bounded Land brings new dimensions and reflections to the work of Cole Harris as a scholar. The themes turn on settlement, colonization, dispossession, re-settlement, and the concluding theme throws light on Indigenous displacement and theories of empire and decolonization.

Jim Reynolds:
This is the most informative, penetrating and best-written account that I have read on the topic.

James Murton:
A Bounded Land is a guided tour through the work of a brilliant, insightful, and compassionate mind and body of work.

J.R. (Jim) Miller, author of Compact, Contract, Covenant: Aboriginal Treaty-Making in Canada:

Impressively comprehensive in its geographic, chronological, and methodical scope, A Bounded Land displays the scholarly mastery that has made Cole Harris one of the most respected historical geographers of the past half-century.

Brian Osborne, Professor Emeritus, Geography and Planning, Queen’s University:

Recognized as one of the nation’s leading historical geographers, over a span of fifty years, Cole Harris has written on settler colonialism in northern North America in general and Canada and British Columbia in particular. In this refined compendium, he reprises his past writings and reflects on his current thinking on the main issues in understanding settler societies.

Anne Godlewska, Professor, Geography and Planning, Queen’s University:

This is historical geography at its best. A Bounded Land combines the realities of colonial daily life with attention to international imperial strategies and economic forces. As Canada grapples with reconciliation, this beautifully written book gives important insight into Canada’s retrenched colonial nature.

Richard White. Professor Emeritus, American History, Stanford University:

Intertwining the physical, cultural, social, and economic remakings of the colonial world, Cole Harris has written an important, nuanced account of how colonists and imperial systems reshape and remake landscapes and people.