The Evolution of Urban Canada: An Analysis of Approaches and Interpretations

Dean Tudor is a journalism professor at the Ryerson Polytechnical
Institute and founding editor of the CBRA.

Artibise is a well-known Canadian urban historian, editor and bibliographer; this study complements his massive Canada’s Urban Past: A Bibliography to 1980 and Guide to Canadian Urban Studies (University of British Columbia Press, 1981). It is an historiographical survey of the emergence of a new (to Canada) field of scholarship, outlining trends, frameworks, and typologies. Important themes and interpretations of history (both social and economic) are noted, as well as the influences and impacts of these themes. At the end there is a valuable resources list as well as an inventory of urban history studies in Canada. Unlike many of these “research institute” papers and reports, this one has typeset double-column pages and would probably be equivalent to a 160-page book in a more usual format. An extremely useful addition to the growing literature of urban history in Canada.