The Spirit of Industry and Improvement: Liberal Government and Rural-Industrial Society, Nova Scotia, 1790-1862

Daniel Samson moves Nova Scotia and rural Canada from the colonial margins to the heart of a modernizing society, showing how the countryside functioned as a centre of change and innovation. He connects a fascinating spectrum of sites, actors, and strategies and links settlement, farm-building, rural market formation, and early industrialization to the heterogeneous strategies of families and state actors, the rural poor, and rural elites.