Collective histories and broad social change are informed by the ways in which personal lives unfold. Lives in Transition examines individual experiences within such collective histories during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This collection brings together sources from Europe, North America, and Australia in order to advance the field of quantitative longitudinal historical research. The essays examine the lives and movements of various populations over time that were important for Europe and its overseas settlements - including the experience of convicts transported to Australia and Scots who moved freely to New Zealand. The micro-level roots of economic change and social mobility of settler society are analyzed through populations studies of Chicago, Montreal, as well as rural communities in Canada and the United States. Several studies also explore ethnic inequality as experienced by Polish immigrants, French-Canadians, and Aboriginal peoples in Canada. Lives in Transition demonstrates how the analysis of collective experience through both individual-level and large-scale data at different moments in history opens up important avenues for social science and historical research. Contributors include Luiza Antonie (Guelph), Peter Baskerville (Alberta), Kandace Bogaert (McMaster), John Cranfield (Guelph), Gordon Darroch (York), Allegra Fryxell (Cambridge), Ann Herring (McMaster), Kris Inwood (Guelph), Rebecca Kippen (Melbourne), Rebecca Lenihan (Guelph), Susan Hautaniemi Leonard (Michigan), Hamish Maxwell-Stewart (Tasmania), Janet McCalman (Melbourne), Evan Roberts (Minnesota), J. Andrew Ross (Guelph), Sherry Olson (McGill), Ken Sylvester (Michigan), Jane van Koeverden (Waterloo), Aaron Van Tassel (Western).

One of Canada's leading business social scientists, Peter Baskerville is professor of history, University of Victoria, in-coming chair of Modern Western Canadian History, University of Alberta, and the author of several books, including, with Eric Sager, Unwilling Idlers: The Urban Unemployed and Their Families in Late Victorian Canada.

Peter Baskerville's profile page

Kris Inwood's profile page

“The sheer range and variety of types of longitudinal historical analyses presented in this collection, and the range of questions asked about various standard views in historiographies, do indeed highlight the method skilfully and admirably.” Australian

"The use of longitudinal historical data created by linking individual-level information in two or more large-scale databases is a relatively new technique to study patterns of social and geographic mobility. The chapters in Lives in Transition draw on census material from Canada, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand and, as a result, scholars from an array of countries will be able to see firsthand how this technique can generate new and interesting lines of historical and sociological inquiry." Vic Satzewich, Department of Sociology, McMaster University