S.D. Clark – författare

By questioning the widely accepted picture of suburban society which has been developed by many sociologists, social psychologists, and other serious students of social science, as well as by popular writers, this book will challenge much of our thinking about certain trends and developments in present-day society. The author, a distinguished Canadian sociologist, shows that there is no essential difference between the new society of the suburbs and any other new society in terms of the kind of forces which produced it. The suburban societies so far studied, he maintains, have been selected because they conform to the existing stereotype, and so the myths have been perpetuated.Professor Clark pays special attention to the mass-developed suburbs. He shows that most suburban dwellers live in areas undergoing mass development, and that in such areas none of the characteristics  commonly attributed to suburbia are to be found. The people who have moved to the suburbs in such large numbers are not, the author claims, "other directed" as Riesman would maintain, or "organization men" as Whyte has called them. They were, rather, mainly interested in finding houses to live in, having been forced out of the city in search of living space. By examining a number of suburban areas around Toronto, Professor Clark shows how the suburban society developed from crude beginnings, lacking almost all the attributes of a society, to a society largely urban in character.

Professor Clark's thesis is that the development of Canadian society can only be understood by examining how changes taking place in the underlying structure of the Canadian community. The first part of the book examines the development of forms of social organization in Canada over the years 1600 to 1920. In the second and third sections the focus shifts to the general forces in Canadian society shaping the character of institutions and forms of social life. The book concludes with four essays devoted to an examination of the relationship of sociology to history. This volume demonstrates the mutually enriching value of a sociological-historical approach, and is very useful for those interested in communities, social change and organization, and the structure of Canadian society.

In this volume, Professor Clark shows that for two hundred years Canadian society was subject to the same kind of disturbing and disruptive forces that revealed themselves in the United States in the Revolutionary period. In Canada, as in the United States, there was a frontier element which, economically, socially, and culturally, did not feel itself part of the established political order, and which periodically reacted against that order. In Canada, however, the spirit of the frontier regularly met defeat, and the author analyses the causes of this defeat in a thorough and illuminating manner, dealing in sequence with each area of conflict. The study is divided into four parts: The First American War of Independence, 1660-1760; The War of the United Colonies, 1765-1785; The Struggle for the West, 1785-1815; The Canadian Rebellions, 1815-1840.The author, an economist and sociologist, diverges sharply from the traditional historical interpretation of events in Canada from 1640 to 1840, which has been to emphasize the differences between the two countries rather than similarities. His realistic and penetrating study may prompt many to re-examine and re-assess the bases of their interpretations.

In this collection of essays the changing structure of the Canadian community, especially in its urban growth, is brought before the reader with many fresh insights, much vigorous comment, and apt illustration. The authors, concentrating on certain kinds of problems which have interested them individually, provide for student and general reader stimulating analysis of social phenomena which are under lively examination these days in Canada and beyond both in popular and semi-popular journals and magazines and in learned writings.Nathan Keyfitz opens the volume with a valuable background analysis of the way in which the population of Canada has reached its present numbers and distribution and examines the effects of immigration and of changing rates of birth and death. S.D. Clark deals with the controversial question of what the real characteristics of the suburban community can be seen to be and comments forcefully on the "suburbia" of Riesman, Whyte, et al. W.E. Mann presents a fascinating analysis of the patterns of life in a slum area of Toronto which swarms with factory workers and truck-drivers, with people of many racial origins, and which has developed social habits based largely on rooming-houses, small shops, and pubs. Jean Burnet provides an historical account of changing moral standards of sobriety and piety as reflected in sabbatarian and temperance movements in Toronto, long regarded as the quintessence of severity. Oswald Hall gives a valuable analysis of the patterns of growth in the professions and of the kinds of competitive struggles going on within them and at the borders between them as new groups strive to win this status in society. P.J. Giffen takes up an important related question of how interests of a self-governing profession relate to the expectations of the public and uses the legal profession as his example. Finally, Leo Zakuta adds to the scanty literature on Canadian political parties an analysis of the changing character of the C.C.F., long the dominant force in left-of-centre politics.The authors all are, or have been members of the staff in sociology at the University of Toronto, and their essays convey an excellent picture of the liveliness of the work they jointly carry forward. This volume will thus serve not only to introduce students to some of the kinds of problems sociologists are thinking about but will also make better known to them as a group some of the sociologists in Canada who are engaged with them.