Time Travel: Alan Gordon's New Book is Here! | College of Arts

Time Travel: Alan Gordon's New Book is Here!

Posted on Tuesday, April 12th, 2016

Congratulations to our own Dr. Alan Gordon for his new publication with UBC Press, Time Travel: Tourism and the Rise of the Living History Museum in Mid-Twentieth-Century Canada (2016)

from the jacket:
In the 1960s, Canadians could step through time to eighteenth-century trading posts or nineteenth-century pioneer towns. These living history museums promised authentic reconstructions of the past but, as Time Travel shows, they revealed more about mid-twentieth-century interests and perceptions of history than they reflected historical fact. The post-war appetite for commercial tourism led to the development of living history museums. They became important components of economic growth, especially as part of government policy to promote regional economic diversity and employment. Time Travel considers these museums in their historical context, revealing how Canadians understood the relationship between their history and the material world.