The University of Toronto is Canada’s leading university and one of Canada’s most important cultural and scientific institutions. In this history of the University from its origin as King’s College in 1827 to the present, Martin Friedland brings personalities, events, and changing visions and ideas into a remarkable synthesis. His scholarly yet highly readable account presents colourful presidents, professors, and students, notable intellectual figures from Daniel Wilson to Northrop Frye and Marshall McLuhan, and dramatic turning points such as the admission of women in the 1880s, the University College fire of 1890, the discovery of insulin, involvement in the two world wars, the student protests of the 1960s, and the successful renewal of the 1980s and 1990s. Friedland draws on archival records, private diaries, oral interviews, and a vast body of secondary literature. He draws also on his own experience of the University as a student in the 1950s and, later, as a faculty member and dean of law who played a part in some of the critical developments he unfolds. The history of the University of Toronto as recounted by Friedland is intimately connected with events outside the University. The transition in Canadian society, for example, from early dependence on Great Britain and fear of the United States to the present dominance of American culture and ideas is mirrored in the University. There too can be seen the effects of the two world wars, the cold war, and the Vietnam war. As Canadian society and culture have developed and changed, so too has the University. The history of the University in a sense is the history of Canada.

An award-winning Hong Kong–based architect with decades of experience designing buildings and planning cities in the People’s Republic of China takes us to the Pearl River delta and into the heart of China’s iconic Special Economic Zone, Shenzhen. Shenzhen is ground zero for the economic transformation China has seen in recent decades. In 1979, driven by China’s widespread poverty, Deng Xiaoping supported a bold proposal to experiment with economic policies in a rural borderland next to Hong Kong. The site was designated as the City of Shenzhen and soon after became China’s first Special Economic Zone (SEZ). Four decades later, Shenzhen is a megacity of twenty million, an internationally recognized digital technology hub, and the world’s most successful economic zone. Some see it as a modern miracle city that seemingly came from nowhere, attributing its success solely to centralized planning and Shenzhen’s proximity to Hong Kong. The Chinese government has built hundreds of new towns using the Shenzhen model, yet none has come close to replicating the city’s level of economic success. But is it true that Shenzhen has no meaningful history? That the city was planned on a tabula rasa? That the region’s rural past has had no significant impact on the urban present? Juan Du unravels the myth of Shenzhen and shows us how this world-famous “instant city” has a surprising history—filled with oyster fishermen, villages that remain encased within city blocks, a secret informal housing system—and how it has been catapulted to success as much by the ingenuity of its original farmers as by Beijing’s policy makers. The Shenzhen Experiment is an important story for all rapidly urbanizing and industrializing nations around the world seeking to replicate China’s economic success in the twenty-first century.

Organized as a series of walks through the distinctive precincts of the University of Toronto's three campuses, this architectural guide offers an intimate view of Canada's largest university. Upper Canada's first institute of higher education was originally built in the nineteenth century in a pastoral setting outside the city limits. The downtown St.George campusdeeply embedded in Toronto's dense urban coreserves a community of 70,000 students. One of the highest-ranked universities in the world, it contains some of the finest architecture in Canada, starting with Frederic Cumberland's masterpiece, the Norman Romanesque-style University College, (1859). Otherbuildings of note include W. G. Storm's impressive Romanesque-revival Victoria College building (1892), Darling and Pearson's Gothic-style Trinity College Building (1925), and Hart House, designed by architects Sproatt and Rolph (1919). In recent years, the university has continued to expand with buildings designed by Sir Norman Foster, Behnisch Architects, KPMB Architects, Diamond and Schmitt, and Pritzker prize-winner Morphosis, among many others.

Anyone who attended the University or who is interested in the growth of Canada's intellectual heritage will enjoy this compelling and magisterial history.

. In Minerva's Aviary, John G. Slater documents the history of Toronto's Philosophy Department from its founding to contemporary times.