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York University: The Way must be Tried By Michiel Horn Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2009. xii + 316 pag cs. $49.95 hardcover. ISBN 978-0-7735-3416-2 (www.mqup.ca)
Michiel Horn's meticulously detailed history of York University is a fitting tribute to the institution's fiftieth anniversary. Commissioned by former York president Lorna Marsden in 2002, this lavishly illustrated book is both a factual and an anecdotal narrative tracing the origins of the university as a dream of North Toronto citizens, built on a farmer's field, to its current prominence as one of Canada's largest and most diverse universities.
This book joins a corpus of university histories stretching from Victoria to St. John's, the majority of which deal with much older and longer-established institutions. Horn, Professor Emeritus of History, himself witnessed much of the history that he chronicles. In his preface to the substantial volume, he acknowledges the challenge these factors presented: "The university was still young, making historical perspective difficult if not impossible. Moreover, I doubted that I was the right person to be York's historian. Having been a member of the faculty since 1968, I would find it hard to adopt a dispassionate point of view." (p. ix)
Horn was persuaded to persevere with the full support of the late...