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The title of Dr. Oiva Saarinen’s new book is actually rather modest. It refers to “A Historical Geography,” and yet the book covers much broader ground from labour studies and local government restructuring to geology and landscape transformation.

Saarinen is a well-respected geographer who taught for forty years at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario, where he covered a range of topics from northern studies to urban geography and planning. The breadth of his knowledge is evident in this work. Saarinen uses ten of his fifteen chapters to provide information on the pre- 1939 development of the Sudbury area. For example, he covers everything from mining smelter sites to Finnish settlements and the development of the “Little Italy” district.

My favourite chapters, however, are the ones where Saarinen describes post-1939 change. One chapter covers the evolution of Sudbury and adjacent company towns into a regional government structure. Another deals with the restructuring of what Saarinen calls the “Regional Constellation” into the current city of Greater Sudbury. Both of these chapters include discussion of the change from Sudbury being solely an Inco/ Falconbridge mining town to its becoming a diverse economic entity.

I particularly appreciated the maps, including those of the various company towns, and the detailed tables and aerial photos that accompany the entire text. Saarinen draws not only from the expertise of cartographer Leo Lariviere but also from the Sudbury Planning and Development Department.

Anyone who wants to learn about, or teach about, the impact of resource development and the political changes that occur during annexation and amalgamation would be well advised to read this book.

Saarinen may have been a long-time academic, but his writing style is immensely readable and his commentary easily blends material about local people and groups with the more technical aspects of mineral development and land survey techniques. His book will certainly interest long-term residents of Sudbury, but as a relatively recent migrant to the area I can attest to its appeal to a much broader readership.