Brian Gettler

Brian Gettler’s research focuses on the political, economic, and social history of colonialism in Quebec and Canada. He has published articles in several edited collections and academic journals, including the Canadian Historical Review, Histoire sociale / Social History, and the Revue d'histoire de l'Amérique française. Gettler’s book, Colonialism’s Currency: Money, State, and First Nations in Canada, 1820-1950, analyzes the distinct experiences of three First Nations alongside the monetary dimensions of British and Canadian Indian policy and corporate policy in the fur trade. Rather than focusing on the perhaps obvious ways in which wealth shaped politics, it concentrates on money as both a symbol around which discourses of appropriate behaviour were articulated and as a concrete tool in the governance of peoples and lands. His current research explores public finance and Crown-First Nations fiscal relations in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Brian is a member of the Montreal History Group and Associate Editor of the Canadian Historical Review.