Business history is a reemerging field in Canada and this collected volume edited by Andrew Smith and Dimitry Anastakis represents an effort to reinvigorate discussion about the field and, more broadly, about Canadian economic history. The eight chapters in Smart Globalization originated as papers presented at a conference in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario in 2010. While the chapters cover different industries and periods, they all revolve around the common theme of Canada's involvement in the global economy. Globalization, which Smith and Anastakis note is often viewed as a modern process, is described within a longer historical context (p. 9). They emphasize in the introduction that Canada is both a product and agent of globalization and note successive stages of globalization, beginning in the mid–nineteenth century (pp. 8, 13–14). Most importantly, Smith and Anastakis situate the overall theme of the volume within the work of Marshall McLuhan and Harold Adams Innis (p. 18). McLuhan's work is more widely known outside of Canada than Innis's, but anyone who wishes to understand the origins of Canadian political economy must really start with Innis's Staples Theory.

As with all countries, there is in Canada the history of a national economy and then the narratives of regional economies. Andrew Dilley's chapter on the development of hydroelectric power in Ontario in the 1910s is an example of the latter analysis. He revealingly illustrates the important role that British imperial finance played in shaping hydroelectric development in Ontario—specifically, opposition from financial interests to the manner in which hydroelectric power was established. Mark Kuhlberg's chapter illustrates the impact of the major foreign economic influence on Canada—in this case, the United States—in his chapter on pulpwood. The idea of Canadians being “hewers of wood and drawers of water” is a widely accepted idea in the country, and Kuhlberg describes the impact of the pulpwood industry on northern Ontario.

The impact of both Anglo and American influence on Canadian economic affairs is also discussed by Daryl White, in his chapter on the International Nickel Company in World War I. The story of Canada in World War I still looms large in the national consciousness, but it is primarily a narrative focused on Western Front battlefields rather than on economic development at home. Nonetheless, the Canadian economy changed markedly from 1914 to 1918. Livio Di Matteo, J. C. Herbert Emery, and Martin P. Shanahan's chapter covers a decade that overlaps somewhat with the period discussed by White, in their comparative study of settler economies in northwestern Ontario and south Australia from 1905 to 1915. This is a particularly useful comparison because, of the so-called dominion nations, Australia and Canada were the most similar. Both have historically depended on natural resource extraction for economic growth—the staples of Innis's theory—although geographic distance led them to have different relations with the United States and Britain.

Early economic policy following Confederation in 1867 was focused on a National Policy that featured tariffs to protect domestic manufacturing. It also, as Michael N. A. Hinton reveals in his chapter, helped foster the growth of a Canadian cotton industry. Cotton is a crop that, unlike wheat or wood, is not popularly associated with Canada; however, Hinton shows that government policy played an important role in shaping the industry—and it would similarly contribute to the growth of other industries. Greig Mordue, in his chapter on the emergence of the automotive industry in Canada, also emphasizes the importance of tariffs and how they led to the arrival of American manufacturers in the country. He notes the significance that the Canadian government placed on the automotive industry, including a royal commission led by Vincent Bladen in 1960.

Graham Taylor examines a different industry in his chapter on the rise and demise of the Seagram Company. Unlike the automotive industry, where production was dominated by foreign firms, the Canadian distillery industry included significant domestic companies. Seagram became the most dominant, expanding well beyond Canada's borders into a range of consumer alcohol beverages. As with other Canadian family-owned firms that prospered under their founders and then foundered under the leadership of subsequent generations, Seagram is in Taylor's analysis a cautionary tale. Matthew Bellamy provides the final chapter in the book, and he also focuses on the alcoholic beverage industry. As with distilled beverages, the Canadian brewing industry was dominated for decades by family-owned domestic firms. Molson and Labatt eventually grew to be the largest of them but, like the distillery business, brewing became increasingly international and dominated by a few enormous firms that swallowed or merged with domestic Canadian companies.

Smart Globalization shows how Canadian business was shaped by globalization, but the chapters contained in it also tend to reinforce a view of Canada as being dependent on staples. Together, they highlight the inability or unwillingness of Canadian manufacturers to avoid becoming extensions of larger foreign firms. Smart Globalization is useful despite its frequent focus on Ontario and central Canada because it represents a wider emerging effort to reconsider the role of business and capital in Canada's development. It will hopefully spur the pursuit of new avenues of inquiry. For instance, has globalization had a variable historical effect across Canada? What impact has it had on the economic development of communities? How has it shaped—and been shaped by—Canada's founding people, that is, First Nations, English, and French? What more can be said about Canada within the wider British imperial economic system? How does Canada's historical experience with globalization compare with that of other countries beyond the United States and Britain? Smart Globalization is a good starting point from which to consider these issues and many more.