Inventing Canada

Alexander D. Gregor is Director, Centre for Higher Education Research
and Development, University of Manitoba, and the co-editor of
Postsecondary Education in Canada: The Cultural Agenda.

This book, a celebration of Canadian inventiveness and of Canadian
achievement, comprises profiles of Canadian inventors, from amateurs to
scientists and technologists. Although the book spans the past 100
years, the emphasis is on recent decades. Many of the profiles are based
on personal interviews that provided the author with information about
such matters as the source and process of invention and the frustrations
encountered in bringing the inventions to the marketplace. The
inventions themselves, which range from rapeseed to board games, are
organized into 11 groups: high tech, medicine, sports, fashion,
mechanics, communications, construction, food, games, entertainment, and
transfer of technology. Appendices provide a more comprehensive view of
inventors and inventions.

Inventing Canada is a solid addition to popular Canadian social
history. The author is to be commended for bringing to light a number of
remarkable Canadian achievements that have gone largely unsung before
this.