Ontario: 200 Years in Pictures. Rev. ed.

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

In history circles, the coffee-table book is a much-maligned literary
form. Whereas serious historians and their readers sneer at books that
reek of lemon furniture polish, there is still a sizable market for
those who like large books with not much print and lots of pictures.
Ontario: 200 Years in Pictures would seem to be aimed at this market.
Unfortunately, this book will likely be a disappointment to people who
love this genre.

Because this is a “picture” book, one would expect the
illustrations to drive the story line. But there is, in many cases, no
story line—merely a rambling commentary. The text and the
illustrations do not always complement one another. Sometimes the text
is altogether confusing.

The scope of the project, admittedly, is enormous. Yet the short
(15-page) introduction achieves what the rest of the book seems
incapable of bringing about—cohesion. Unfortunately, the scholarly
fabric begins to unravel the minute the pictures are inserted.

It should be noted that this book is a reissue of an earlier work, A
Picture History of Ontario (Hurtig, 1978). The main reason for its
reissue seems to be to commemorate Ontario’s bicentennial (1791-1991).
Although the text is updated to include Bob Rae’s NDP election sweep
of 1990, the book remains stale and not quite satisfying.

Hall and Dodds repeatedly mention the old-Ontario middle-class
male-WASP narcissism that is often mistaken for the majority experience
for this province. Little is offered from the perspective of female,
working-class, First Nations, or non-anglo Canadian experience.

In all, Ontario: 200 Years in Pictures falls between the cracks. It
belongs neither on the coffee table nor on the shelf of any serious
history buff.