JAMES LEMON, a native of a small town in southwestern Ontario, is Professor
Emeritus in Geography, University of Toronto. After earning his PhD in
historical geography at the University of Wisconsin in 1964, he taught at
UCLA before coming to Toronto in 1967.

He is the author of The Best Poor Man`s Country: Early Southeastern
Pennsylvania. That book won the American Historical
Association`s Beveridge Prize for the best book in American history 1972.
He is also the author of Liberal Dreams and Nature`s Limits: Great North
American Cities since 1600. In that book, one chapter focuses on Toronto leading up to 1975. He is currently writing a book dealing with Canada`s past, present and future.
Sometime activist in Toronto`s public realm during the reform era, Jim Lemon was chair of the Annex Residents Association 1971-1973 and of the
Confederation of Resident and Ratepayer Associations 1973. He ran in
provincial and federal elections. From 1976 to 1978 he served on the Toronto Board of Education, deciding then that he was not cut out to be a
politician. When not writing, he gives occasional lectures and seminars, and in warm weather grows vegetables and flowers on his Annex space.