The lives of professors and students, deans and presidents, their ideas and idiosyncrasies, their triumphs and failures, provide the driving force of Waite's narrative. Avoiding the details of financing, curriculum, and administration that sometimes dominate institutional histories, Waite focuses on the men and women who were the blood of the university and who established its traditions and ethos.

Halifax in peace and war is basic to Dalhousie's history, as is its relations with other colleges and universities in Nova Scotia. Waite sets all this out, placing Dalhousie's development within the larger Nova Scotian context.

P. Waite's profile page

"Often witty and dramatic and enlivened by a series of humorous anecdotes, Waite's narrative is informed throughout by a very mature analysis, analysis based upon an extensive perusal of written and oral sources interpreted with the skill of an experienced historian and in the light of a lifetime's acquaintance with universities in general and Dalhousie in particular. It ranks among Waite's best work." Ernest Forbes, Department of History, University of New Brunswick