Metropolitan Natures

Environmental Histories of Montreal

A fascinating collection of essays that makes a substantial contribution to our understanding of Montreal's environmental history. The book brings together a range of authors to explore the interaction between the environment and the city. The result is a tantalizing array of topics. This important book will be of interest to a variety of scholars, including those working on Montreal, urban history, and environmental history.
Robert Lewis, University of Toronto

One of the oldest metropolitan areas in North America, Montreal has evolved from a remote fur-trading post in New France into an international center for services and technology. A city and an island located at the confluence of the Ottawa and St. Lawrence Rivers, it is uniquely situated to serve as an international port while also providing rail access to the Canadian interior. The historic capital of the Province of Canada, once Canada’s foremost metropolis, Montreal has a multifaceted cultural heritage drawn from European and North American influences. Thanks to its rich past, the city offers an ideal setting for the study of an evolving urban environment.

Metropolitan Natures presents original histories of the diverse environments that constitute Montreal and it region. It explores the agricultural and industrial transformation of the metropolitan area, the interaction of city and hinterland, and the interplay of humans and nature. The fourteen chapters cover a wide range of issues, from landscape representations during the colonial era to urban encroachments on the Kahnawake Mohawk reservation on the south shore of the island, from the 1918-1920 Spanish flu epidemic and its ensuing human environmental modifications to the urban sprawl characteristic of North America during the postwar period.

Situations that politicize the environment are discussed as well, including the economic and class dynamics of flood relief, highways built to facilitate recreational access for the middle class, power-generating facilities that invade pristine rural areas, and the elitist environmental hegemony of fox hunting. Additional chapters examine human attempts to control the urban environment through street planning, waterway construction, water supply, and sewerage.

336 Pages, 6 x 9 in.

June, 2011

isbn : 9780822944027

about the editors

Stephane Castonguay

Stéphane Castonguay is Canada Research Chair in Environmental History at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières and coeditor of Metropolitan Natures: Environmental Histories of Montreal.

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Stephane Castonguay
Michele Dagenais

Michèle Dagenais is professor of history at Université de Montréal.

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Michele Dagenais