STEPHEN R. BOWN is one of Canada’s leading writers of non-fiction, and the winner of the 2024 Governor General’s Award for Popular History (the Pierre Berton Award). His books The Company and Dominion stand among the most vivid retellings of Canada’s origins; stories that remind us how ambition, ingenuity, and brutality often shared the same frontier.

In this conversation, we use The Company and Dominion as a foundation to explore the wider art of writing popular history: how to bring the past to life without bending it to modern sensibilities, and how to tell stories of exploration, commerce, and empire in a way that lets readers see themselves reflected in those who came before.

Stephen speaks candidly about the genre itself, the challenge of recapturing nuance in an era that demands moral certainty, and the need to return to a middle ground that acknowledges the good, the bad, and the ugly of history. It’s a conversation about balance, complexity, and how the ambitions and contradictions of the past still echo in who we are today.

STEPHEN R. BOWN is a popular historian and author of 12 works of literary non-fiction. His books have been published throughout English-speaking territories and have been translated into nine different languages; he has also written more than 20 feature magazine articles highlighting lesser-known characters and events in Canadian history. He strives to make the past accessible, meaningful, and entertaining by applying a narrative and immersive style to his writing, which blends story-telling with factual depth.

Stephen R. Bown’s Website

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Opening Song: Aria 51 by MicroBongo Soundsystem, used with permission.