The twelve essays composing Subsistence under Capitalism, prepared mainly by historians, anthropologists, and other scholars, have two major goals: to explain how the spread of capitalism marginalized subsistence economies and living (also called “self-provisioning” and “vernacular” living), and conversely, to also show that significant subsistence economies have persisted and perhaps even expanded in importance in recent decades. Inspired by a workshop, “Bringing Subsistence Out of the Shadows,” held in 2009 at Nipissing University in Ontario, Canada, this volume deals mainly with Canadian developments, especially those around the Great Lakes and prairies, but several of the pieces look at other parts of the world.

In part 1, four scholars try to examine “the ways that capitalist markets pushed subsistence activities into the shadows,” as the editors put it (p. 37). Sarah J. Martin looks at how Canadian officials forced First Nations people into commercial agriculture in a “home farm” scheme between 1879 and 1884 and explains how this effort at forced civilization “obscured” most “indigenous foodways” (p. 41). William Knight investigates how the spread of recreational sport fishing pushed aside, and in fact destroyed, much subsistence fishing by Native peoples in Ontario during the late nineteenth century. He concludes, “Anglers lobbied for, and won, conservation regulations that preserved fish such as bass and trout for sport, which was valorized over their utility as food.” Moreover, “Native peoples and rural settlers bore the brunt of conservation and opposed this enclosure with varying degrees of success” (p. 60). Environmental-justice issues were at play here, as in many of the case studies outlined in Subsistence under Capitalism. Joshua MacFadyen provides a detailed examination of the growth of the commercial flax-spinning industry in the Canadian countryside between 1850 and 1870. He observes that its development was a complex one, which opened some new opportunities for home production. Like other essays, MacFadyen's piece hints at a blurring between subsistence and market production. Finally, R. W. Sandwell examines how subsistence practices continued on farms on the Canadian Shield even as they were increasingly integrated into market economies between 1900 and 1940, writing that “rural labour continued to be largely uncommodified and organized according to kinship, and rural households continued to produce an important portion of what they consumed” (p. 103). “Flexibility and adaptability” characterized the work, Sandwell asserts, of farmers on the Shield (p. 136).

The five essays making up part 2 seek to illustrate, in the words of the editors, that “subsistence practices are not limited to the margins but occupy central spaces in local and global economies and networks, presenting viable alternatives to capitalist production and exchange” (p. 143). Three of these essays look beyond Canadian developments. Nancy Pottery examines the history of First Nations fishing on Lake Nipissing in northern Ontario, stressing the continued importance of subsistence fishing (and its changing legal status), but also observing how lines separating commercial from subsistence fishing have often blurred. Looking at Cree and Metis people in central Alberta, Clinton N. Westman points out, as do some of the other authors, that subsistence fishing, foraging, and hunting involved much more than economics, for they embraced specific ways of thinking and living. In one of the most valuable essays in Subsistence under Capitalism, Jennifer Lee Johnson and Bakaaki Robert compare relatively small-scale, artisanal fishing in Uganda's Lake Victoria, home to the world's largest freshwater fishery, to larger-scale fisheries on the lake designed for export trades. Looking at catching, processing, and selling fish, the authors reach important conclusions for economic and social development. Michael J. Hathaway examines what has become a global trade in wild matsutake mushrooms from its local roots. M. Jahi Chapell investigates connections between environmental change, indigenous peoples' rights, and economic development in parts of Latin America, focusing especially upon the Landless Workers' Movement in Brazil, concluding that alternative, non-monocultural agriculture can be “an effective tool to promote sustainable development” (p. 255).

Three essays comprise the third and last part of Subsistence under Capitalism. A transcript of a roundtable discussion among four practitioners of subsistence living in Canada, mainly farmers and gardeners, provides modern-day insights into the joys and difficulties of vernacular lifestyles and also demonstrates just how intertwined subsistence and market economies have become. In a sometimes confusing essay, Sanjay Samuel seeks to generalize about vernacular life and thought, looking especially at the ideas of a pioneer in such matters, Ivan Illich. Colin A. M. Duncan, in a somewhat opaque piece titled “On the Semantics of Theorizing the Cause(s) of the Shadows, or How to Think about Counting the Differences between a Wild Edible Mushroom and a Super Tanker, Neither of Which Fits the Commodity Form,” tries to make sense of what “subsistence” means by defining the meanings of commodity production.

Subsistence under Capitalism will be of most interest to business historians and other scholars seeking case studies of the persistence of subsistence economies and lifestyles in the modern world, especially Canada, and the blurring line dividing subsistence and market economies over time. The study is less successful in trying to show exactly how capitalistic economies pushed subsistence ones into the shadows. While valuable and fascinating in many places, Subsistence under Capitalism is a bit unsatisfying as a whole. The work leaves basic questions unanswered: Under what circumstances does subsistence living work best? How can subsistence living best relate to markets? How might successful subsistence efforts be scaled up to reach larger groups of people around the globe? These criticisms may, however, go beyond the goals of the contributors to the volume.