Canada and the Global Economy: The Geography of Structural and Technological Change

David Robinson is an economics professor and dean of the Faculty of
Social Sciences at Laurentian University.

Economic geographers are like glacier watchers: their stock in trade is
describing what is too big and too slow for the rest of us to see. In
this book, 24 of them seek to capture the essential structure of
Canada’s contemporary economic geography. They address subjects
ranging from the impact of international competition on regional
resource economies to the implications of North American free trade.
While they deal with issues that concern writers in other social
sciences, as geographers they are interested in the changing spatial
distribution of economic activity.

Individual chapters drawing on the authors’ current research are
organized around four themes: the openness of the economy, regional
variation in resource base and urbanization, technological change, and
the role of government. The editor provides valuable introductions both
to the volume and to each of its five parts.

The strength of this book is that it shows us how emergent economic
forces are slowly changing the geographic organizing principles of our
lives. Its coverage is broad, the quality high, and the discussion
informative and occasionally provocative. Canada and the Global Economy
will be useful for geographers, economists, sociologists, and planners
with an interest in the Canadian economy and regional development.