Historians have not usually identified British Columbia as a rural province. B.C. historiography has been dominated by mining, logging, and fishing, and theorized within the context of large-scale, laissez-faire capitalism and economic individualism. Silences in the historical record have exacerbated this situation and lent tacit support to the dominance of resource-based capitalism as the shaping force in B.C. history.

The essays in Beyond the City Limits, all published here for the first time, decisively break this silence and challenge traditional readings of B.C. history. In this wide-ranging collection, R.W. Sandwell draws together a distinguished group of contributors who bring expertise, methodologies, and theoretical perspectives taken from social and political history, environmental studies, cultural geography, and anthropology. They discuss such diverse topics as Aboriginal-White settler relations on Vancouver Island, pimping and violence in northern BC, and the triumph of the coddling moth over Okanagan orchardists, to show that a narrow emphasis on resource extraction, capitalist labour relations, and urban society is simply not broad enough to adequately describe those who populated the province’s history.

By challenging the dominant urban-based and overwhelmingly capitalist interpretation of the province’s history, the provocative essays in Beyond the City Limits expand our understanding of what "rural" was and what it meant in the history of British Columbia.

R.W. Sandwell is associate professor in the Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto, and author of Contesting Rural Space: Land Policy and Practices of Resettlement on Saltspring Island, 1859–1891.

R.W. Sandwell's profile page

• Winner, Clio Award (British Columbia), Canadian Historical Association

While the rural sometimes gets lost in the dazzling array of topics and methodological approaches represented here, this book is often fun to read and serves as a delightful sampler of what happened 'beyond the city limits' in British Columbia ... If subsequent research efforts 'beyond the city limits' are as well executed as are those depicted in this sampling ... then the history of British Columbia and Canada will be the richer for it.

BC Studies

Ken Favrholt’s article on agricultural settlement south of Kamloops does a wonderful job of explaining the presence of the old abandoned farm houses that dot the landscape on either side of Highway 5, and David Dendy’s account of codling moths in the Okangan is a "must read" for anyone interested in the history of the provincial tree fruit industry or the problems facing the widely publicized sterile insect release program. [Jean] Barman’s essay is clearly written and it manages to tackle a number of potentially contentious issues in a balanced and non-partisan manner. After reading Barman’s contribution you will no longer accept the arguments that all pioneering women were white, that academics are incapable of writing a coherent sentence, and that academic articles are categorically different from the articles that grace the pages of The Beaver or British Columbia Historical News.

BC Historical News (Fall 2000)