The Dawn of Canada’s Century: Hidden Histories. Edited by Gordon Darroch (Montreal, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2014) 498 pp. $100.00

This book, written by many of Canada’s leading historical scholars, sheds new light on a number of topics, including language identity, aboriginal populations, family and household arrangements, immigration, politics, and social class and mobility at the beginning of the twentieth century. Its most important feature is the analysis of historical census microdata. The four introductory chapters deal with census data and methods, the new 1911 census microdata sample, and parallel projects for samples of the 1851/52, 1871, 1881, 1891, and 1901 censuses. In addition to the 1911 census sample, comparable samples are also underway for the 1921, 1931, 1941, and 1951 censuses. The other twelve chapters present an analysis of historical census microdata. All of them analyze 1911 data, but several use other historical data sets. A chapter about Quebec City explores the linkage of individuals over several censuses for the 1871 to 1911 period. About one-half of the chapters...