Although Arctic explorer and Hudson Bay Company surveyor John Rae (1813-1893) travelled and recorded the final uncharted sections of the Northwest Passage, he is best known for his controversial discovery of the fate of the lost Franklin Expedition of 1845. Based on evidence given to him by local Inuit, Rae determined that Franklin's crew had resorted to cannibalism in their final, desperate days. Seen as maligning a national hero, Rae was shunned by British society. This collection of personal correspondence--reissued here for the first time since its original publication in 1953--illuminates the details of Rae's expeditions through his own words. The letters offer a glimpse into Rae's daily life, his ideas, musings, and troubles. Prefaced by the original, thorough introduction detailing his early life, John Rae's Arctic Correspondence is a crucial resource for any Arctic enthusiast. This new edition features a foreword by researcher and Arctic enthusiast Ken McGoogan, the award-winning author of eleven books, including Fatal Passage: The Untold Story of John Rae (HarperCollins, 2002).
Scottish doctor and explorer John Rae is a controversial figure in the history of the Arctic. He began his career with the Hudson's Bay Company as a surgeon in Moose Factory, Ontario, where he learned to survey, live off the land, and travel great distances on snowshoes. These skills served him well when, in 1846, he was charged with completing the geography of the northern shore of North America and set out on his first expedition. Some years later, while exploring the Boothia Peninsula in 1854, Rae obtained information about the rather shocking fate of the Franklin expedition, which had been missing since 1845. Upon his return to England, however, Rae was discredited by Charles Dickens and shunned by the British establishment, never receiving proper recognition for his roles in finding the Northwest Passage and discovering the fate of Franklin and his crew. The Arctic Journals of John Rae is the definitive collection of John Rae's writings, from his only published work, Narrative of an Expedition to the Shores of the Arctic Sea in 1846 and 1847, to obscure notes and journals and reports of his controversial findings in 1854. An accomplished explorer who had great respect for the customs and skills of the peoples native to the Arctic, John Rae is a fascinating figure and an important part of the history of the North.
John Rae is best known today as the first European to reveal the fate of the Franklin Expedition, yet the range of Rae’s accomplishments is much greater. Over five expeditions, Rae mapped some 1,550 miles (2,494 kilometres) of Arctic coastline; he is undoubtedly one of the Arctic’s greatest explorers, yet today his significance is all but lost. John Rae, Arctic Explorer is an annotated version of Rae’s unfinished autobiography. William Barr has extended Rae’s previously unpublished manuscript and completed his story based on Rae’s reports and correspondence—including reaction to his revelations about the Franklin Expedition. Barr’s meticulously researched, long overdue presentation of Rae’s life and legacy is an immensely valuable addition to the literature of Arctic exploration.
Volume I contains a biographical study of John Rae, a brilliant economist and scholar who lived in Canada for a period in the early part of the nineteenth century, an analysis of Rae's contributions to economics, and a collection of his articles and essays on a variety of topics. These miscellaneous writings, many of which originally appeared in contemporary newspapers and magazines, reveal the broad range of his intellectual interests as well as his polemic and literary skill. Volume II is a reprint of Rae's book Statement of New Principles on the Subject of Political Economy which was originally published in Boston in 1834. As a result of the reissue of this book, which has been scarce for some years, modern students of economics will be better able to appreciate Rae's fundamental contribution to the development of economic thought, particularly the theory of capital. Much of Rae's analysis of economic development and behaviour was based on a first-hand knowledge of the Canadian economy in the early nineteenth century, but his theory has a surprisingly modern flavour, and is completely relevant to the problems of primitive or emerging economies today. Rae, personally, has been a neglected and obscure figure and one of the main objects of this work is to throw additional light on his career. There were a number of gloomy and disappointing episodes in his life, but, despite them, his devotion to scholarly pursuits remained unimpaired, and his literary output continued throughout his life. This work should appeal to all those interested in the history of ideas, particularly to those concerned with the economic, political and religious controversies of the first half of the nineteenth century. For his contributions to economic theory John Rae is entitled to a place in the first rank of economists anywhere in the world, and for this reason he deserves the attention of all students of economics and sociology. His work is sprinkled with profound insights into human behaviour and, in addition, he displays a literary style which has seldom been surpassed in the literature of economics.
John Rae made a wide-ranging contribution to economics, in particular through his work on Capital Theory and Technical Change. Although Rae was held in high esteem by some of the great names of the past who have openly acknowledged his originality and their indebtedness to him, he has not yet received all the attention he deserves. In The Economics of John Rae, respected economists, redress the general neglect of Rae as a classical economist and examine his role as a political economist.
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