City of Dreams: Social Theory and the Urban Experience

Abstract

tradition. He questions some of Innis' thinking but ultimately remains wedded to the staple theory's core assumptions and perspectives. But Easterbrook neither extends the notion's explanatory power nor reinterprets it creatively. In this context, his view that the diversified industrial economy that emerged in the nineteenth-century United States represents development is extraordinarily controversial (100). This volume's significance is reflected in its capacity to provide coherent explanations for the complex events of the late twentieth century. Continental free trade, the emergence and possible demise of the United States as a hegemonic power and the threat of national disintegration in Canada are all comprehensible within Easterbrook's framework. Indeed, his imaginative scholarship is reflected in a postscript which reveals his nascent thinking about the impact of communications and technological change on economic development. His work is a testimony to the value of sweeping interpretations which, while controversial and occasionally too general, force us to think about economic and political change in its broadest forms. Finally, a caution should be extended to political scientists who, upon reading this book, might claim that its significance lies in Easterbrook's serious efforts to incorporate political analysis. Here, after all, is an important economist whose theories, with some effort, can be understood and employed. Easterbrook's work can just as easily be used to demonstrate that a genuine political economy rests on a knowledge of economic history and theory that few contemporary political scientists either possess or feel inclined to acquire.