Toronto: The First 13,000 Years

Telling Toronto's story from the final retreat of the Laurentide Ice Sheet to today's metropolis, a team of historians brings together beautiful illustrations and fresh perspectives in this short history.

Peter Carruthers introduces Toronto as a middle ground: geographically a meeting point between Canada's vast natural resource wilderness, and the sprawling continental Midwest. Since prehistory the city’s site has been a place of meditation and exchange between different cultures and peoples.

Robert MacDonald takes us back 12,500 years with an exploration of the geological and ecological history of the area's ancient landscape.

Ronald F. Williamson presents the archaeological record of the lives of the Indigenous peoples who made seasonal camps and villages along the river valleys and lakeshore.

Carl Benn describes the colonial transformation of York during the 1700s, and its growth into the most important urban, institutional, cultural and commercial centre in Upper Canada during the early 19th century.

Christopher Andreae presents the city’s age of industry, a century of technological and industrial growth that laid the foundations for today’s city.

Roger Hall brings Toronto into the twenty-first century, analyzing the forces that transformed Toronto into a vigorous, multicultural metropolitan centre that continues to re-invent itself.

Updated with new research, particularly honouring and reflecting Indigenous perspectives, this new edition provides an engaging multi-layered history of Toronto.