The Government of Natural Resources explores scientific and technical activity in Quebec from Confederation until the eve of the Second World War. Scientific and technical personnel are an often quiet presence within the state, but they play an integral role.
At the turn of the twentieth century, the provincial government created geology, forestry, fishery, and agronomy services. These new services drew from recently established university technical programs to amass a corps of skilled employees to support their mission: exploiting resources and occupying territory. Stéphane Castonguay traces the history of mining, logging, hunting, fishing, and agriculture in Quebec to reveal how territorial and environmental transformations thus became a tool of government.
By helping to define and shape such interventions, scientific activity contributed to state formation and expanded administrative capacity. The lessons that this thoughtful reconceptualization of resource development offers reach well beyond provincial borders.
The Government of Natural Resources explores scientific and technical activity in Quebec from Confederation until the eve of the Second World War. Scientific and technical personnel are an often quiet presence within the state, but they play an integral role.
At the turn of the twentieth century, the provincial government created geology, forestry, fishery, and agronomy services. These new services drew from recently established university technical programs to amass a corps of skilled employees to support their mission: exploiting resources and occupying territory. Stéphane Castonguay traces the history of mining, logging, hunting, fishing, and agriculture in Quebec to reveal how territorial and environmental transformations thus became a tool of government.
By helping to define and shape such interventions, scientific activity contributed to state formation and expanded administrative capacity. The lessons that this thoughtful reconceptualization of resource development offers reach well beyond provincial borders.
Foreword: Science in Action / Graeme Wynn
Introduction
1 The Administrative Capacities of the Quebec State: Specialized Personnel and Technoscientific Interventions
2 The Invention of a Mining Space: Geological Exploration and Mineralogical Knowledge
3 Soil Classification and Separation of Forest and Colonization Areas: Scientific Forestry and Reforestation
4 Surveillance and Improvement of Fish and Game Territories: Conservation of Wildlife Resources
5 Regionalization and Specialization of Agricultural Production: Disseminating Agronomic Knowledge
Conclusion: Knowledge, Power, and Territory
Appendix: Identification of Technoscientific Activities in the Public Accounts (1896–1940)
Notes; Bibliography; Index
Stéphane Castonguay is a professor of environmental history and Quebec studies at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières and former Canada Research Chair in Environmental History (2003–13). He is also the author of Protection des cultures, construction de la nature: L'entomologie économique au Canada, 1884–1959, and co-editor, with Matthew Evenden, of Urban Rivers: Re-making Rivers, Cities, and Space in Europe and North America and, with Michèle Dagenais, of Metropolitan Natures: Environmental Histories of Montreal. Käthe Roth has been a literary translator for more than thirty years.
The author provides great detail on the history of technical and
scientific advances in the four natural resource areas of Quebec
from 1867 to 1939.
*Choice Connect*
In meticulously detailed chapters devoted to the development of
mining, forestry, wildlife conservation, and agriculture, Casonguay
shows how Quebec took control of its resources.
*Literary Review of Canada*
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