Book Review:

The Most Important Books/Articles in Canadian Sociology in the Twentieth Century: A Report

Harry H. Hiller
Simon Langlois

Canadian Journal of Sociology 26, 3 (2001): 513-516.

To mark the advent of the new millennium, sociologists across Canada were asked to nominate book monographs and journal articles which they considered to be the most important in Canadian sociology in the twentieth century. The only requirement was that the book/article had to deal with some aspect of Canadian life or that its author was domiciled in Canada or had at some point been domiciled in Canada. The division of publications into two categories, namely monographs and journal articles had the effect of eliminating other forms of publication such as book chapters and edited books.

It was acknowledged that what would be considered important would obviously vary by personal preference or subdisciplinary area, but the goal was to see if there was any consensus at all about what was most important. The Call For Nominations was widely distributed in both English language and French language communities.

Dozens of nominations (including self-nominations) were received by letter, personal communication, and verbally, and the nominations represented a diversity of fields — often lone nominations were received in an area. It soon became clear that “importance” is a very relative matter (e.g.. importance for what and for whom) and that it was rather futile to generate a list which addressed all issues and all subdisciplinary areas. In view of the fact that the purpose of the exercise in the first instance was to stimulate discussion and debate rather than to produce a statistically significant result, we have decided to produce a list around which there was some consensus from the responses received. This list was presented at the 2000 CSAA meetings in Edmonton for further discussion and refinement. Rather than attempting to force others into agreeing with any listing, we decided in the end that this list would represent the personal conclusions of Langlois (the French language list) and Hiller (the English language list) based on the feedback received. There is no claim to its authoritative status and others are invited to develop their own lists. In view of the public call for nominations, we felt it important to report on the response and we think it is useful to reflect on the list that has been generated.

The original goal was to discover whether there was any consensus regarding what these publications would be. We feel uncomfortable in identifying these publications as representing a consensus because of the lack of scientific validity in such as assertion. On the other hand, these publications were repeatedly mentioned. We asked whether the publication nominated broke new ground in some significant way that is widely recognized among sociologists, and particularly sociologists in Canada. Did the publication spawn and inspire further research or did the publication set the research agenda in some way? Has the publication been an important contribution by a Canadian that is recognized beyond Canada’s borders? Has the publication had a continuing high profile or widely cited impact on sociology in Canada or particularly Quebec? And last, did the publication make a seminal contribution to our understanding of Canadian/Quebec society or to some phenomenon occurring within Canadian society? These are the questions that framed the final selection.

We have created separate lists in English and in French acknowledging that the impact and meaning of these publications hold different places in the sociological communities of the two languages. The two lists tends to be biased towards earlier publications which suggests that what we consider most important may be those publications which we consider classics and that have had many years over which to develop their impact. There were a number of nominations from the 1990's, for example, but the impact of these publications was still unclear. Publications available in both French and English are listed according to the language of first publication and apply specifically to the two books authored by Hughes and Guindon which appeared on both lists.

Publications in French

Books:

Bourque, Gilles et Jules Duchastel
1988 Restons traditionnels et progressifs. Pour une analyse du discours politique. Le cas du régime duplessiste. Montréal: Boréal.

Dumont, Fernand
1993 Genèse de la société québécoise. Montréal: Boréal.
1968 Le lieu de l’homme. La culture comme distance et mémoire. Montréal: HMH.

Falardeau, Jean-Charles (ed.)
1953 Essais sur le Québec contemporain. Québec: Presses de l’Université Laval.

Freitag, Michel
1986 Dialectique et société. Montréal: Editions Saint-Martin et Genève, L’âge d’homme.

Gérin, Léon
1937 Le type économique et social des Canadiens. Montréal: ACF.

Godbout, Jacques T.
1992 L’esprit du don. Montréal: Boréal.

Moreux, Colette
1963 Fin d’une religion? Monographie d’une paroisse canadienne-française. Montréal: Presses de l’Université de Montréal.

Rocher, Guy
1969 Introduction à la Sociologie générale. 3 tomes, Montréal: HMH.
Tremblay, Marc-Adélard et Gérald Fortin
1964 Les comportements économiques de la famille salariée du Québec. Québec: Les presses de l’Université Laval.

Articles:

Bourque, Gilles et Nicole Laurin-Frenette
1970 “Classes sociales et idéologies nationalistes au Québec, 1760–1970.” Socialisme québécois 20(2):13–55.

Caldwell, Gary and B. Dan Czarnocki
1977 “Le rattrapage raté. Le changement social dans le Québec d’après guerre, 1950–1974: une comparaison Québec-Ontario.” Recherches sociographiques 18(1):8–58.

Dofny, Jacques et Marcel Rioux
1962 “Les classes sociales au Canada français.” Revue française de sociologie 3 (juillet): 290–300.

Dumont, Fernand et Guy Rocher
1962 “Introduction à une sociologie du Canada français.” Recherches et Débats 34(mars): 13–38.

Dofny, Jacques et Muriel Garon-Audy
1969 “Mobilités professionnelles au Québec.” Sociologie et Sociétés 1,2(novembre):277–302.

Gagné, Gilles
1986 “L’État commercial ouvert.” Bulletin du Mauss (Paris) 17(mars):71–101.

Guindon, Hubert
1977 “La modernisation du Québec et la légitimité de l’État canadien.” Recherches sociographiques 28(3):337–366.

Laurin-Frenette, Nicole
1981 “Les femmes dans la sociologie.” Sociologie et Sociétés 13(2):3–18.

Schecter, Stephen
1993 “De la stratification sociale dans la société postmoderne.” Société 11:57–94.

Simard, Jean-Jacques
1977 “La longue marche des technocrates.” Recherches sociographiques, 18(1):93–132.

Publications in English

Books:

Armstrong, Pat and Hugh Armstrong
1978 The Double Ghetto: Canadian Women and their Segregated Work. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart.

Boyd, Monica, John Goyder, Frank E. Jones, Hugh McRoberts, Peter C. Pineo and John Porter
1985 Ascription and Achievement: Studies in Mobility and Status Attainment in Canada. Ottawa: Carleton University Press.

Clement, Wallace
1975 The Canadian Corporate Elite. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart.

Clement, Wallace and John Myles
1994 Relations of Ruling: Class and Gender in Post-Industrial Societies. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press.

Goffman, Erving
1959 The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Garden City, New York: Doubleday.

Guindon, Hubert
1988 Quebec Society: Tradition, Modernity, and Nationhood. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Hughes, Everett C.
1943 French Canada in Transition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Lipset, Seymour Martin
1963 The First New Nation. New York: Basic Books.

Porter, John
1965 The Vertical Mosaic. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Smith, Dorothy
1987 The Everyday World as Problematic: A Feminist Sociology. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Articles:

Blishen, Bernard
1967 “A Socio-Economic Index for Occupations in Canada.” Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology 4(1):41–53.

Breton, Raymond
1964 “Institutional Completeness of Ethnic Communities and the Personal Relations of Immigrants.” American Journal of Sociology 70 (2):193–205.

1984 “The Production and Allocation of Symbolic Resources: An Analysis of the Linguistic and Ethnocultural Fields in Canada”. Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology 21(2):123–144.

Guindon, Hubert
1964 “Social Unrest, Social Class, and Quebec’s Bureaucratic Revolution.” Queen’s Quarterly 71(Summer):150–162.

Pineo, Peter and John Porter
1967 “Occupational Prestige in Canada.” Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology 4(1):24–40.

Wellman, Barry
1979 “The Community Question: The Intimate Networks of East Yorkers.” American Journal of Sociology 84(5):1201–1231.

Wrong, Dennis
1961 “The Oversocialized Conception of Man in Modern Sociology.” American Sociological Review 26(2):183–193.