Dictionary of Canadian Biography / Dictionaire Biographique Du Canada: Volume IX, 1861 - 1870

Francess G. Halpenny, Jean Hamelin

University of Toronto Press, 1976 - Biography & Autobiography - 967 pages

The Dictionary of Canadian Biography is the definitive biographical reference work in Canadian history. "No serious student of Canada's past can function without access to this thorough, balanced and reliable source." R. Hall, Globe and Mail.

About the author

Francess G. Halpenny is the former managing editor of University of Toronto Press and is Professor Emeritus in the Faculty of Information Studies at the University of Toronto. Born in Quebec, Jean Hamelin obtained graduate training during the 1950s in Paris, where French scholars such as Fernand Braudel and Pierre Goubert had begun to redefine the historians' tasks. They composed "total" histories that analyzed long-term changes in social and economic structures, encompassed the lives of ordinary people, and recreated mentalities. In his doctoral thesis, Hamelin asked why New France lacked a powerful business class. Rather than employing a clerico-nationalist perspective, he applied the quantitative techniques of his Annales mentors and concluded that the entire economy of New France had been seriously flawed. Hamelin's work failed to persuade some critics. Nonetheless, his emphasis on the primacy of socioeconomic questions and his use of quantitative data have been taken up by many historians in Quebec who challenge the nationalistic interpretations of Lionel Groulx and his disciples.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Dictionary of Canadian Biography / Dictionaire Biographique Du Canada: Volume IX, 1861 - 1870; Dictionary of Canadian Biography, George William Brown; Volume 9 of G - Reference,Information and Interdisciplinary Subjects Series
• Editors: Francess G. Halpenny, Jean Hamelin
• Publisher: University of Toronto Press, 1976
• ISBN: 0802033199, 9780802033192
• Length: 967 pages
• Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / Cultural, Ethnic & Regional / General; Biography & Autobiography / General; Biography & Autobiography / Historical; Business & Economics / Entrepreneurship; History / Americas (North, Central, South, West Indies); History / Canada / General; History / Reference; Reference / Genealogy & Heraldry