STEPHEN R. BOWN writes on the history of exploration, science and ideas. His subjects include the medical mystery of scurvy, the Treaty of Tordesillas and the lives of Captain George Vancouver and Roald Amundsen. His books have been published in multiple English-speaking territories, translated into nine languages and shortlisted for many awards. He has won the BC Book Prize, the Alberta Book Award, the William Mills Prize for Polar Books, among others. His 2020 book, The Company: The Rise and Fall of the Hudson's Bay Empire, won the J.W. Defoe Book Prize and the National Business Book Award. His next book, Dominion, published in 2023, is a national bestseller and was named Best Book of the Year by the Globe and Mail, History Today and The Hill Times. Born in Ottawa, Bown now lives near Banff in the Canadian Rockies.