The West and Beyond explores the state of Western Canadian history, showcasing the research interests of a new generation of scholars while charting new directions for the future and stimulating further interrogation of our past. This dynamic collection encourages dialogue among generations of historians of the West, and among practitioners of diverse approaches to the past. It also reflects a broad range of disciplinary and professional boundaries, offering new ways to understand the West.

ALVIN FINKEL is a founding member of the Alberta Labour History Institute, an emeritus professor of History at Athabasca University where he taught for 36 years and the past president of the Canadian Committee on Labour History.

He was the book review editor for the journal Labour/Le Travail for 11 years and is still a member of that journal’s editorial board. A prolific author, Alvin’s 13 books have sold over 150,000 copies. They include textbooks on Canadian history and the history of social policy as well as labour history and the history of the events leading to World War II. On the latter topic, he co-wrote The Chamberlain-Hitler Collusion with Clement Leibovitz (Lorimer 2011). He lives in Edmonton Alberta.

Alvin Finkel's profile page

Sarah Carter, F.R.S.C., is H.M. Tory Chair and Professor in the Department of History and Classics, and Faculty of Native Studies at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. She is a specialist in the history of Western Canada and is the author of Aboriginal People and Colonizers of Western Canada to 1900, Capturing Women, and Lost Harvests. Sarah Carter was awarded the Jensen-Miller Prize by the Coalition for Women's History for the best article published in 2006 in the field of women and gender in the trans-Mississippi West.

Sarah Carter's profile page

Peter Fortna is a historical and traditional land use consultant in the Fort McMurray area. His research interests include Aboriginal history, traditional environmental knowledge, and public history. He was also the co-organizer for "The West and Beyond: Historians Past, Present and Future" conference, on which The West and Beyond is based.

Peter Fortna's profile page

• Short-listed, Margaret McWilliams Award in Scholarly History

“The depth and breadth of the essay in The West and Beyond indicate a renewed vitality in Western Canadian history, reconstituted as a field rooted in a particular geographic space, but at the same time attuned to broader sets of processes and other spaces.”

“The essays in this volume are a fascinating snapshot of current scholarship about western Canada and reveal a crop of emerging historians who have expanded the reach of Western Canadian Studies beyond its earlier regional and analytical confines.”