Canada in the Age of Rum
McGill‑Queen's UP, 2026
Book •
Allan Greer’s Canada in the Age of Rum examines the massive importation and social role of rum in the colonies that became Canada between the 1670s and the 1830s.
The book traces rum from West Indian plantations and New England distilleries into fisheries, the fur trade, and settlement economies, arguing rum functioned as a mechanism to reduce labour costs and bind workers and Indigenous trading partners to capitalist enterprises.
Greer explores cross-cultural differences in consumption, the deliberate use of rum as a gift and control mechanism by traders, and Indigenous responses including organized resistance.
He situates the phenomenon within the first age of globalization and connects its decline to the rise of whiskey and the temperance movement by about 1830.
The study illuminates how a single commodity reshaped social life and early Canadian capitalism.
The book traces rum from West Indian plantations and New England distilleries into fisheries, the fur trade, and settlement economies, arguing rum functioned as a mechanism to reduce labour costs and bind workers and Indigenous trading partners to capitalist enterprises.
Greer explores cross-cultural differences in consumption, the deliberate use of rum as a gift and control mechanism by traders, and Indigenous responses including organized resistance.
He situates the phenomenon within the first age of globalization and connects its decline to the rise of whiskey and the temperance movement by about 1830.
The study illuminates how a single commodity reshaped social life and early Canadian capitalism.
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Miranda Melcher
Allan Greer, "Canada in the Age of Rum" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2026)
Mentioned by 
Miranda Melcher
Allan Greer, "Canada in the Age of Rum" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2026)
