Awards

• Short-listed for <P>Canada Prize, Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences</P> 2016 (Canada)
• Short-listed for Canada Prize, Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences 2016 (Canada)
• Short-listed for Heritage Toronto Book Award 2015
• Short-listed for Sir John A. Macdonald Prize awarded by Canadian Historical Association 2015 (Canada)
• Shortlisted for Heritage Toronto Book Award 2015.
• Winner of <P>Heritage Toronto Award of Excellence for best book on Toronto history</P> 2015 (Canada)
• Winner of CLIO Prize - Ontario awarded by Canadian Historical Association 2015 (Canada)
• Winner of Fred Langdon Award awarded by Ontario Historical Society 2015 (Canada)

Overview

A small river in a big city, the Don River Valley is often overlooked when it comes to explaining Toronto's growth. With Reclaiming the Don, Jennifer L. Bonnell unearths the missing story of the relationship between the river, the valley, and the city, from the establishment of the town of York in the 1790s to the construction of the Don Valley Parkway in the 1960s. Demonstrating how mosquito-ridden lowlands, frequent floods, and over-burdened municipal waterways shaped the city's development, Reclaiming the Don illuminates the impact of the valley as a physical and conceptual place on Toronto's development. Bonnell explains how for more than two centuries the Don has served as a source of raw materials, a sink for wastes, and a place of refuge for people pushed to the edges of society, as well as the site of numerous improvement schemes that have attempted to harness the river and its valley to build a prosperous metropolis. Exploring the interrelationship between urban residents and their natural environments, she shows how successive generations of Toronto residents have imagined the Don as an opportunity, a refuge, and an eyesore. Combining extensive research with in-depth analysis, Reclaiming the Don will be a must-read for anyone interested in the history of Toronto's development. The second edition contains a new foreword commenting on the life of the book, and the river, in the ten years since the book was first published. Combining extensive research with in-depth analysis, Reclaiming the Don is a must-read for anyone interested in the history of Toronto.

Full Product Details

9781442612259

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Reviews

Fred Langdon Award awarded by Ontario Historical Society -- 01 CA Michael Ondaatje would enjoy this beautiful history of Toronto's Don valley: it explores a place he drew on for his own work and it shares his novels' intensity of imagery. -- Gideon Forman This Magazine (March/April 2015) 'One of Bonnell's most intriguing innovations is her blending of the social history of the valley with its environmental history... Her analysis and approach to the environmental history of this river valley helps us to see the extent to which humanity is implicated in the history of this space and how that history influences environmental change.' -- Sean Kheraj Journal of Historical Geography vol 30:1-2:2015 'Jennifer Bonnell explains in her interesting and well-researched study, there is much more to the story of Toronto's river... The Don offers a path through the city's environmental history, while hinting at how the city might finally come to terms with its own environment. It is a trip, and advice, worth taking.' -- Stephen Bocking Canadian Historical Review vol 96:03:2015

Fred Langdon Award awarded by Ontario Historical Society -- 01 CA Michael Ondaatje would enjoy this beautiful history of Toronto's Don valley: it explores a place he drew on for his own work and it shares his novels' intensity of imagery. -- Gideon Forman This Magazine (March/April 2015)

Author Information

Jennifer L. Bonnell is an associate professor in the Department of History at York University.

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