Toronto
Biography of a City
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- $29.99
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- $29.99
Publisher Description
With the same eye for character, anecdote and circumstance that made Peter Ackroyd’s London and Colin Jones’s Paris so successful, Levine’s captivating prose integrates the sights, sounds and feel of Toronto with a broad historical perspective, linking the city’s present with its past through themes such as politics, transportation, public health, ethnic diversity and sports. Toronto invites readers to discover the city’s lively spirit over four centuries and to wander purposefully through the city’s many unique neighborhoods, where they can encounter the striking and peculiar characters who have inhabited them: the powerful and powerless, the entrepreneurs and the entertainers, and the moral and the corrupt, all of whom have contributed to Toronto’s collective identity.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This highly informative and easy-to-read account accumulates four centuries of history that have transformed a quiet and family-friendly green space on the rolling land alongside the Humber River into one of the biggest urban centers in North America. Award-winning author and historian Levine (King) has produced a popular-styled biography of Toronto, the biggest, the richest, the most multicultural, and the most hated city in Canada. The chronicle of Toronto is composed from numerous life stories of its inhabitants, and every reader will find his favorite character, whether it is a prominent politician, a notorious criminal, a successful entrepreneur, or a celebrity who once paid a visit to the city. Some names are easily recognizable, such as Charles Dickens, Ernest Hemingway, department store magnate Timothy Eaton, or former mayor Rob Ford, others are less known, but together they form a composite picture of Toronto, a city that lacks world-class landmarks and attractions but continues to attract people from all over the globe as a comfortable place to live and raise their families.
