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188 The Canadian Historical Review invented past' but rather constitutes 'part ofa process ofauthentication, of connecting people to the reality of their place' (258). Mouat's insistence on authentication rather than invention in our understanding of western Canadian history rests somewhat uneasily with other essays in the volume which contest how and by whom the past gets represented . But his passionate defence ofthe need 'to connect the imagination with the environment' (261) rings true. Making Western Canada is a first-rate anthology that clearly signals the arrival ofthe 'new western historiography' within Canada. The book also includes an up-to-date and extremely useful select bibliography. JAMES STRUTHERS Trent University Edmonton: The Life of a City. Edited by BOB HESKETH and FRANCES sWYRlPA. Edmonton: NeWest 1995· Pp. 366, illus. $39·99 This commemorative collection of thirty-four essays is 'fusion' or 'hybrid' history of the best sort. It is the collective endeavour of historians and geographers (active, retired, and emeritis); of faculty from sociology, anthropology, nursing, English, and education; of businessmen , museologists, archivists, and architectural consultants; ofwriters, editors, po~ts, novelists, and journalists. The bookends are two urban historians, the ubiquitous Gilbert Stelter (a University of Alberta graduate), and Paul Voisey (a University of Alberta professor). While each 'discipline' displays its idiosyncrasies of method and style in these essays, all proceed diachronically, make modest general propositions (though some historians tend to be a little weak on the modesty front), and back these up with evidence. On the basis of such standard criteria (and differences would be slight among these remarkably consistent offerings), the best of the historians are probably the nurses. This book, and the conference on which it was based, is a celebration of the city on its 2ooth anniversary by people who are clearly enamoured by the place in which they live. Such celebrations are often gushing, uneven sorts of things. Not this one. All the offerings are at least competent and convincing, the product, one assumes, of a job of editorial management akin to the successful herding of cats. Even the few solecisms are so delightful they might be intended: the market square used as a 'martialling' yard on Remembrance Day. All the articles, without exception, could be used to study Edmonton, as well as provide the Edmonton perspective on such things as the fur · Book Reviews 189 trade, religion, pioneers, social service, feminism, the arts, ethnicity, the young, business, development, sport, labour, or politics. There is also a serendipity effect. Together, by happy accident, the collection as a whole can be read as evidence for the 'culture' ofthe city. Edmontonians , as demonstrated here, seem to have reconciled their evident differences in terms of a broad community consensus. A kind of tolerant homogenizing is a thread that runs through the whole collection, in the same way that a diversity of contributors has generated a singular product. JOHN TAYLOR Carleton University The Yonge Street Story, 1793-1860: An Account from Letters, Diaries and Newspapers. F.R. BERCHEM. Toronto: Natural Heritage/Natural History 1996. Pp. 192, illus. $19.95 The story of Yonge Street is an imperial success story, the conversion of a line through the forests of a remote colony into the thoroughfare of a thriving metropolis. It is the story of the street itself: the first hazardous cutting, the politics of allocating lots, the ever-present concern about mud and swamp, the lobbying to improve the road's surface by macadamizing, the setting up of toll booths, the establishing of the first stage lines. It is also the personal sagas of men (alas, this book is singularly short on women) who settled along the way: Quakers seeking pacifist sanctuary from Yankee belligerence; John Montgomery building his various taverns; Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Moodie retiring on his estate (just in time to be killed in the Rebellion); or Benjamin Thorne founding a mill and losing his fortune (and his life by suicide). Yet the Yonge Street story is also tales of failed enterprises and shattered dreams. Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe envisioned a military road connecting a secure fortress on Lake Ontario to the upper Great Lakes: the road was used militarily but once, in a valiant but worthless 1813 expedition...

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