The company town, source of so much of Canada's wealth, was-and is-a place with nowhere to hide. First published in 1971, Rex Lucas's Minetown, Milltown, Railtown is a groundbreaking study of what it's like to live in such communities. Today, with the oil-sands boom and rising commodity prices affecting everything from the value of the Canadian dollar to the balance of power within Confederation, single-industry towns remain as central as ever to the country's economic and social life. Minetown is a compelling portrait not just of Canada's past, but of its present and future, too.

Minetown, Milltown, Railtown: Life in Canadian Communities of Single Industry is a Wynford Book -- one of a series of titles representing significant milestones in Canadian literature, thought, and scholarship. New introductions place each book in a modern context and show its continuing relevance.

REX A. LUCAS studied at McGill and Columbia universities, and is now Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto. He has contributed articles to several learned journals, is author of Men in Crisis: A Study of a Mine Disaster and (with Catherine D. McLean) Nurses Come Lately, and editor (with H.D. Beach) of Individual and Group Behaviour in a Coal Mine Disaster.

Rex Lucas' profile page

Lorne Tepperman is a professor at the University of Toronto in the Department of Sociology. He served as chair of the Department of Sociology between 1997–2003 and has authored and co-authored on topics that include social mobility, crime and deviance, gender, family, and Social Problems. He has given talks around the world on the power of social science and has won recognition for his skills in teaching.

Lorne Tepperman's profile page